Not Willing To Let This Go
by ThatRabidPotato
Summary: My version of Mass Effect 1. First part of a series that will eventually span all three games plus the period between 1&2. Will aim at showing broader picture of what's going on as opposed to just the Normandy. Pairing is MShep/Liara, eventually. See my profile for a more indepth description.
1. Prologue- Nihlus

_**0900 Hours Alliance Standard Time, April 12, 2183**_

 _ **Docking Bay G48, Chinook Shipyards**_

 _ **Geosynchronous Orbit over Vancouver, Earth**_

The first thing that struck Nihlus Kryik upon viewing the SSV _Normandy SR1_ for the first time was how _familiar_ it was. It should not have come as a surprise- although his main purpose here was entirely unrelated, he was the official representative of the Turian Hierarchy and Citadel Council at the commissioning and maiden voyage of the ship and had consequently memorized its blueprints and specifications- but somehow, it did.

The _Normandy_ looked _turian._ Its sleek dart-like shape bore little resemblance to the standard angular wedge of human warships, exemplified by the battlecruiser two bays further along. Its engines were not placed at the rear of the hull, but out on two "wings" so much like the elegant bird-of-prey shapes of turian ships (though to be fair turian ships actually had their engines at the rear of the hull as well; Nihlus wasn't sure how this design quirk had made it in). Even the black, silver, and red paint job stood in stark contrast to the blue and gray evident everywhere else in the shipyard. The _Normandy_ had theoretically been co-designed by human and turian engineers, yet whoever the human designers had been, they had seemingly left little of themselves in the shape of the ship. _Yet here it is, in a human shipyard, taking on a human crew, in preparation for its entry into the human fleet._

Nihlus flicked his left mandible ruefully and sighed. Such thoughts were unworthy of him and he knew it. Humanity had been the ones to approach the Hierarchy with the idea for the project. They had been the ones to foot the bill, and nearly all the materials for construction had been obtained from human space by human companies and assembled into a space-worthy ship by human labor. The Hierarchy had been given full access to the plans, in case they ever wished to build any ships of the class themselves. _We cannot begrudge the Alliance possession of the thing they worked so hard to create, no matter what it looks like._ Still, Nihlus could not help but feel a pang as he entered the observation area overlooking the docking bay where the commissioning ceremony was taking place.

The observation area was relatively spacious, certainly more so than its equivalent in a turian shipyard, yet it was nearly packed to the point of being standing room only. The _Normandy's_ full crew complement of fifty enlisted personnel and ten officers were in attendance, as well as whatever family members had been able to make the trip, and various Alliance dignitaries.

 _Full crew complement, and all reporting directly aboard after the ceremony. I know enough about the Alliance Navy to know that this isn't usual, no more than it is in ours. Every individual in this room who knows anything about normal naval procedure has to know something's up._

Yet there had simply been no time to have it otherwise.

Heads turned as Nihlus made his way through the crowd toward the VIP section on the left side of the observation area. Packed the observation area may have been, enough so that one more human entering would have gone completely unnoticed, but Nihlus was the only nonhuman in the room. He stood nearly seven feet tall, average for his species but abnormally tall for humans. Worst of all, he was turian. Only if he had been a batarian would he have been less welcome at the commissioning of humanity's most advanced warship. How anyone could look at the hull of the _Normandy_ and not see the turian influence there was beyond Nihlus, but nevertheless the ship's co-development was not common knowledge among the Alliance public. To those people, his presence here was an intrusion upon a crowning moment of human achievement, and an angry muttering followed him through the room.

Nihlus finally managed to fight his way through the press to the VIP area, and claimed a spot with an excellent view of the podium between Vice Admiral Antonio Cardenas of the Third Fleet and Rear Admiral Semyon Mikhailovich of the 63rd Scout Flotilla. The former, on his left, acknowledged him with a respectful nod, which Nihlus politely returned; the latter, on his right, was visibly affronted by his presence and was seemingly on the point of saying something.

 _Spare me, human. I have more right to be here than you do._ Mikhailovich thought better of it, snorted loudly, and pointedly turned away. _Another fool. Fools in the Alliance, fools in the Hierarchy, fools holding both our species back._ This particular fool commanded the scouting component of the Alliance's Fifth Fleet, which the _Normandy_ was currently slated to join after the completion of its shakedown cruise. If Nihlus had any chance to influence matters, the ship would never come near Mikhailovich's grasp; it was too valuable to waste on him.

An expectant hush fell over the crowd, and Nihlus turned back toward the podium where the assembled officers of the _Normandy_ were standing. When he had entered the room, the microphone at the front of the podium had been occupied by Admiral of the Fleet Kastanie Drescher, the Alliance's Chief of Naval Operations, officially welcoming the new frigate into the ranks of humanity's fleet. Just over a quarter century before, it had been Drescher who led the Alliance's Second Fleet in the liberation of Shanxi, and had dealt the Hierarchy Navy the most resounding defeat it had suffered in a thousand years.

Nihlus bore the woman no ill will. She had just been doing her job, which in that case had entailed smashing a rogue fleet that had launched an unprovoked attack upon an ignorant and uninitiated species and had brought shame upon his people in so doing, and she had done it with courage and professional skill that the warrior in him greatly respected. Yet for all her undoubted talent as a tactician, strategist, and administrator, she fell woefully flat as an orator.

"…And thus, having proudly welcomed the SSV _Normandy_ into the Alliance Navy, the space-borne shield that guards the realm of humankind…" _Spirits, I only caught the tail end of that speech, which was undoubtedly ghostwritten by a professional, and she still managed to make me slightly drowsy._

"…I will now yield to Captain David Anderson for the final remarks of this ceremony." A storm of applause filled the observation area as Drescher stepped back and handed the microphone to Anderson, who waited patiently for it to die down. Whether the clapping signified anticipation of the ceremony's imminent end, or appreciation of the man about to give the last speech, Nihlus could not say. _Probably the former, though it ought to be the latter. This human is no fool._

"Admiral Drescher already covered most of the bases, how this day marks a great triumph for the human race in all sorts of ways. I couldn't hope to improve upon her words, and I won't try," Anderson began, with a slight upturn at one corner of his mouth; an expression roughly equivalent to slightly parted mandibles in turians, a gesture of wry amusement. "I'm going to get straight to the point with what I am going to need out of all of you, and what you can expect of me. I was given full discretion over who to include in this ship's crew, and I picked all of you because I know you are the best. And because you are the best, you deserve the best from your commander. I will never ask more of you than I am willing to do myself, and I will always be the first one on shift and the last one off."

Anderson stepped back from the edge of the podium. "That's it for the inspiring speech. Those of you with family members in attendance may have an hour to mingle with them and say your goodbyes. Those without are to report aboard and stow their gear immediately. We're getting underway at 1100 hours."

Nihlus's mandibles parted in a full-blown smile. He had expected no less. Over the past month, he had worked closely with David Anderson, and had formed a reasonably detailed picture of the man. Anderson had spent the last twenty years or so rotating between various training posts planetside and postings aboard various Alliance warships, though he had never commanded any until now. That was not unusual among Alliance naval officers, particularly the less competent ones; what was unusual was what Anderson had been doing immediately before the First Contact War and for the six years immediately after it.

The man had spent the prime of his youth in the Special Operations branch of the Alliance Navy, the Interplanetary Combatives Initiative, colloquially known as the "N" branch. Tiered into 7 levels, with N1 indicating a new trainee, and N7 indicating a full-fledged, veteran operator, the ICI was the direct human equivalent of the turian Blackwatch. During the First Contact War, Anderson had personally helped prove that, repulsing an attack by a Blackwatch platoon during the liberation of Shanxi. The Anderson of twenty years ago had been a warrior. The Anderson of today still had the mind and spirit of one, but not the body. The Anderson of twenty years ago would have made a fine Spectre candidate (and Nihlus had heard rumors that he _had_ been one, though why he would have been rejected was beyond him; perhaps it had something to do with the downswing in his career?). The Anderson of today could only help select one.

And with that thought, Nihlus's gaze turned to the man who had been standing at a position of rigid attention to Anderson's right throughout the whole ceremony. _So that's him. He looks every bit the soldier in person that he did in the vids and his dossier photo. This is quite promising._ Normally, the executive officer of a ship would have been the second position filled after the captain. On the _Normandy_ , it had been the last. The man had only received notice of his posting to the _Normandy_ as XO and his promotion to Lieutenant Commander yesterday, which Nihlus understood had been his birthday. _Quite the present, as they go. One of the finest special operators in the human military, a participant in nearly every engagement of note fought by the humans in the last decade, but with almost no experience running a ship or even a department aboard a ship. A totally unfamiliar situation. How will he respond?_

Nihlus had had his eye on Mark John Shepard from the very beginning. It had been at his urging that Special Tactics and Reconnaissance had extended an invitation for humanity to submit a candidate for their ranks. When humanity had accepted, he had been the representative of the Citadel helping humanity winnow down the possibilities for the position, and he (as well as Anderson, who had close personal and professional ties with Shepard) had found reason to quibble and balk at nearly every alternative presented. Looking at him now, Nihlus felt vindicated. Shepard was 6'1", and nearly 200 pounds of pure muscle. Nihlus knew from his dossier that Shepard was also one of the most powerful biotics in the Alliance. But the physical attributes, impressive as they were, shrank before the sheer _presence_ of the man. Shepard oozed deadly competence and self-assurance. Soldiers would instinctively follow such a man out of the confidence that they would be safe in his charge… if for no other reason than that he had already laid waste to everything on the battlefield within seconds. _This is quite promising indeed._

As the crowd began to disperse, the dignitaries heading for the exits, the crew whose family had been incapable for one reason or another of attending heading for the airlock, and those who were fortunate enough to have loved ones present saying their final goodbyes, Nihlus moved toward the podium. He had lost sight of Shepard in the press, and had decided that this was as good a time as any to introduce himself.

But when he managed to locate him again, Shepard was already engaged in conversation with a tall human woman in an Alliance Navy uniform in her mid-fifties and with black hair graying at the temples. _Ah yes, those with family present may stay momentarily. His mother, I presume, I seem to remember she's in the human military as well_. Captain Hannah Shepard, Nihlus recalled, the gleaming insignia on her shoulders confirming it. _Well, far be it from me to interrupt that conversation. Spirits know he'll be too busy to talk to her again for some time_.

Turning towards the airlock instead, he found his way blocked by Anderson. "Not going to say hello?" Anderson inquired, nodding in the direction of the Shepards.

"Not going to interrupt that conversation," corrected Nihlus. "Besides, there will be plenty of time in the next few weeks to get to know him individually."

"True enough," Anderson said, as they walked together towards the airlock. Behind them, Mark Shepard briefly embraced his mother, then turned to follow them at a distance. "Besides, I doubt you'll need to wait until next Wednesday to introduce yourself in any case."

 _ **0100 Hours AST, April 13, 2183**_

 _ **Bridge, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Arcturus System, Arcturus Stream Cluster**_

Nihlus stood at the back of the bridge, watching as the Arcturus-2 relay grew larger in the viewports, silently fuming at the length of time it had taken to get here.

He understood the reason behind it: regardless of the shakedown cruise's real goal, it was still a shakedown cruise of a warship fresh out of the yards stuffed to the gills with prototype technology, and various systems needed to be handled carefully as they were broken in. But the fact remained that Earth to Eden Prime was a simple relay hop that would normally have taken perhaps four or five hours – sub-light out of Earth's gravity well, quick FTL jump to the edge of the Sol system, queue up for the relay to Arcturus-1, transit to the Arcturus system, FTL to Arcturus-2, transit to the Utopia system- that had instead stretched out for nearly 14 hours because Anderson needed to make sure the IES stealth system wouldn't charbroil them all if activated immediately after exiting FTL.

But now, finally, they were almost there. The Arcturus-2 relay began to pivot in space, aligning itself with its cousin in the Utopia system, thousands of light years away.

"Relay online. Signal sent, relay acknowledging. Transit vector locked, calculating transit mass." The pilot the Alliance had chosen for the Normandy, a Flight Lieutenant Moreau, seemed competent enough, though Nihlus was concerned about his military discipline. The man wore a scruffy brown beard of hair on his lower face, something Nihlus had seen on no other active duty human military personnel and was almost certain broke human military regulations. In addition, he wore cumbersome braces of some kind on his legs, the purpose of which eluded Nihlus. _A cripple? Surely not. I refuse to believe any military would have allowed a cripple to pass the first physical, regardless of his talent._

As a blue bolt of energy leaped out from the relay, guiding the _Normandy_ into the mass effect corridor forming between Arcturus-2 and distant Utopia-1, the door at the rear of the bridge hissed open. Glancing backward, Nihlus saw Shepard enter the bridge. _Ah, the man of the hour. With our arrival at our destination, it's time we had that chat… but not here_. The viewports flickered blue for an instant, then reverted to their normal appearance as the SSV Normandy made the near instant transit between relays. Where seconds earlier the red light of Arcturus had been visible through the ports, now the warm yellow glow of Utopia could be distantly seen: the only visible indication that they'd just been sling-shotted between clusters. No matter how many times he went through them, the sheer power of the mass relays never failed to amaze him.

"Thrusters, check. Navigation, check. Internal emission sinks active, all boards show green… relay exit drift just under 1500k," Lieutenant Moreau listed off, somehow managing to sound bored and cocky at the same time.

"1500 is good. Your captain will be pleased," offered Nihlus grudgingly before turning to leave the bridge. _By the sound of him, a compliment is the last thing his swollen head needs, but the truth is the truth_. As he passed through the doors leading to the corridor connecting the bridge to the Combat Information Center, he heard the Flight Lieutenant say in what he undoubtedly thought was a low whisper, "I hate that guy." The doors hissed shut before Nihlus could hear any more, not that he wanted to: his low opinion of the pilot's discipline had just crystallized into certainty.

 _That one will break when it matters most. I trust Anderson's judgement for the most part, but Lieutenant Moreau is not to be relied upon, no matter his performance in the flight simulator_. Passing through the doors at the far end of the corridor into the CIC, Nihlus twitched his right mandible in irritation. The pilot, unreliable as he might be, was irrelevant. Their successful transit into Utopia, and imminent arrival at Eden Prime, meant that it was time to reveal to Shepard the true purpose of the supposed shakedown run.

Ordinarily, Nihlus would've taken a moment to appreciate the turian hand in the layout of the CIC, the nerve center of the ship where the captain would direct operations during combat: the large open space, larger than any other compartment aboard, and the raised platform where the commander could overlook his subordinates bespoke the influence of his people as much as did the sleek shape of the hull. But his mind was otherwise occupied as he stepped through the doors at the rear of the CIC into the ship's conference room. There was only one other occupant.

"Are you ready?" asked Anderson. Nihlus gave a single nod in response. Anderson hit the intercom button on the table that formed the centerpiece of the conference room. "Joker?"

"Aye, sir?"

"Patch us into the comm buoy network, I want status reports relayed back to Arcturus as soon as we reach Eden Prime. And tell Shepard to meet me in the conference room immediately."

"Aye aye, sir." A pause, then- "Better brace yourself, sir, I think Nihlus is heading your way."

Nihlus felt a stab of real anger this time. _The most advanced warship in the galaxy, product of billions of credits and millions of labor hours of research and construction, is being sailed through the stars by an utterly undisciplined nitwit with scraggly fur on his face_.

Apparently Anderson felt similarly. "Send the XO here, Lieutenant, please. And report to me in 45 minutes to discuss your shift as duty officer for the next week." With that, he switched off the intercom.

An awkward silence fell momentarily as Nihlus regained control of himself and Anderson searched for a way to change the subject. "So… heard anything about what your fellow Spectres are doing? That you're allowed to tell me about, that is?" he eventually offered.

"Ah. Well…" Nihlus thought a moment. "Jondum Bau is currently off in the Terminus Systems doing something or other, as he usually is. Lyiss D'Ysera and Tela Vasir were working on busting a large slaving ring they suspected of operating in salarian space last I heard, though they weren't having much luck. Saren is… that's strange. Now that I think about it, I haven't heard from Saren in a couple of years."

An odd look had passed over Anderson's face at the mention of the name of Saren Arterius. "Are you familiar with Saren?"

"In a manner of speaking. I-," Anderson began, then broke off as the door to the conference room opened and the executive officer strode in.

"Apologies for the bit of delay making my way here from the bridge, Captain, I had words with Pressley and Chakwas en route." Shepard snapped off a quick salute. "You wished to speak to me?"

"Indeed I did. This concerns the true nature of our mission here."

"This is far more than a simple shakedown run," Nihlus stated.

Shepard turned to him, addressing him directly for the first time. "With all due respect, Mr. Kryik, I already knew that. I assumed I would be told of the true purpose of this mission when I needed to know." _Impressive. Yet again_. Nihlus had not spoken to Shepard directly in the fourteen hours since leaving the shipyard, but neither had he let him out of his sight for any length of time. He had observed the operator as he made his way through the ship, interacting with the heads of each department.

Shepard had not attempted to familiarize himself with the actual mechanics of the engineering or gunnery stations- that took months of specialized training and was not the proper function of an executive officer in any case- but rather had attempted to familiarize himself with the people running those departments and the most pressing issues facing them. "What can I do to make your work easier?" Nihlus had heard him ask Chief Engineer Adams. _He trusts his subordinates to do their jobs, allowing him to focus on doing his_.

"And now, you need to know." Anderson confirmed, transferring a set of reports to Shepard's omni-tool. "I'll give you the short version. Four days ago, archaeologists working a dig site 64 kilometers southwest of Constant on Eden Prime unearthed a working Prothean beacon. The penalties for withholding Prothean technology are incredibly harsh, and the Alliance doesn't have the facilities necessary to properly study this on Eden Prime in any case. I'm sending you along with several marines from the Normandy's detachment to secure the beacon and bring it aboard for transit to the Citadel."

Shepard's eyes widened in a mixture of shock and relief. _A covert insertion and retrieval operation. This is more in his comfort zone_. "Sir, a _working Prothean_ -?"

"Beacon, yes. You can see why this is so important. It's the first working one that's ever been recovered, anywhere. Until now the largest individual data repositories successfully retrieved have been small discs." Anderson took a deep breath. "But that's only half the reason we called you in here."

Shepard didn't blink. "Does this concern Nihlus's presence aboard, sir?" _At some point, this perceptiveness of his may grow to annoy me. Right now, however, my recommendation to the Council is practically writing itself._

"It does. Nihlus is not just here to oversee the retrieval of the beacon, Shepard. He's also here to evaluate you."

"For what?"

"For joining my organization," Nihlus replied. Now Shepard did blink. "I've had my eye on you for some time. First the business on Elysium, then Akuze. You have demonstrated prowess on the battlefield, leadership, intelligence, and a will to endure-all hallmarks of a Spectre. I advocated to the Council that humanity be invited to submit a candidate for the Spectres with you in mind. Over the next month or so, we will be embarking on several missions together, the retrieval of this beacon being the first. At the end of this trial period, I will submit my recommendation to the Citadel Council on your candidacy. Based on everything I've seen up to now, you will not disappoint."

He might've said more, but the intercom crackled to life. "Sir, we have an incoming transmission from Eden Prime!" The pilot's voice had changed; no longer cocky, Lieutenant Moreau now sounded worried and tense. "You're going to want to see this."

"Put it up on the screen in here." Anderson commanded. The pilot did not verbally respond, but the vidscreen flickered to life to show… chaos. A grainy video, apparently taken from a soldier's helmet-cam, showed indistinct images of a firefight, tracers zipping back and forth, before a young woman in pink-and-white armor slammed into the owner of the cam, knocking him to the turf. "Get _down_ , moron!" She turned and loosed a long burst of fire from her rifle in the direction of what were apparently hostiles, as the owner of the cam twisted to look at a man in beige-and-green armor. An officer.

"This is Lieutenant Abramson of E/3/212, to any Alliance units on this frequency! We have come under heavy attack and are sustaining major casualties! We cannot hold this position! Requesting immediate evac! We-,"

The officer's next words were cut off by the detonation of a grenade, the shrapnel of which slashed through his neck in a spray of bright scarlet blood. As his body slumped to the ground, his men ceased firing one by one and looked towards the sky with expressions of terror on their faces. The helmet-cam swiveled skyward as well, to reveal… tentacles? Fingers? Something immense, wreathed in red lightning. The gunfire resumed, the images dissolved into more panicked images, then… static.

"The transmission cuts out after that. No audio, no video, just static." Lieutenant Moreau said quietly over the intercom.

"Reverse and hold at 38.5." Anderson ordered. The screen again showed the giant metal whatever-it-was emerging from the clouds, wreathed in red lightning. _A ship, it must be, to be landing from space, but I have never seen or heard of anything resembling this_.

"Joker, what's our ETA to Eden Prime?"

"Twenty minutes at sublight speed. Can't risk an FTL jump with hostiles in the area."

"Get us there in fifteen. Shepard, pick the men you're going to take with you, get your hardsuit and weapons, and report to the staging bay." Shepard nodded and turned to leave the conference room. Anderson looked back at the frozen image of the… ship… on the vid screen. "This mission just got a lot more complicated."


	2. Kaidan I

_**0153 Hours AST, April 13, 2183**_

 _ **Two Kilometers NE of Archaeological Dig Site**_

 _ **Eden Prime, Utopia System, Exodus Cluster**_

 __Kaidan's booted feet hit the loam of Eden Prime with a solid _thud_. Quickly regaining his balance, he brought his SMG up to a firing position, quickly ascertained there were no hostiles nearby, then turned to check on the other three members of the insertion team. Lance Corporal Addison Chase performed a perfunctory check on her M8 Avenger assault rifle, then gave him a quick thumbs up. Private Richard L. Jenkins did the same, although without her smooth efficiency. His face was pale and his hands were shaking. Kaidan could not blame him. Despite the bravado the kid had been displaying ever since he'd been named to the _Normandy_ 's ten man Marine detachment, blathering about his hankering for some "real action", this would be Jenkins' first ever combat mission. Even worse, Eden Prime was his home world. __

The fourth member of the squad took a knee in the dirt and signaled with his hand for the three of them to take up a loose semicircle facing him. "I know this came on extremely short notice and without any sort of briefing," the ship's executive officer began. _Too right it did_. Kaidan and Chase had been sleeping peacefully in the crew quarters when the alarm for general quarters came; Jenkins had been finishing up a shift of guard duty in the CIC. They had barely had time to pull on their clothes before the XO barged in, ordered them to grab their gear for a combat insertion into hostile territory, and report to the staging bay in five minutes.

"I'm going to correct that now. I'll give you the short version, since time is of the essence: the ongoing archaeological excavations here on Eden Prime uncovered a working Prothean beacon a few days ago. Our main purpose on this shakedown cruise was to recover it and bring it to the Citadel for study. When we entered the system half an hour ago, we picked up an emergency transmission from the 212th Colonial Defense Regiment saying they were being overrun by unidentified hostiles. Eden Prime is one of our oldest and most populous colonies, but it's too deep in Alliance space for slavers, and has no valuable resources other than soybeans and wheat, so there's nothing here for pirates. Whoever these hostiles are, they must be after the beacon." The XO paused for a moment, then continued. "We are going to get there first. If these hostiles are already there, we will throw them off it. If we encounter any civilians or remnants of the 212 on our direct route to the beacon, we will assist them as best we can, but our top priority is that beacon. Okay, diamond formation. Jenkins, you're a native of this area and know the general location of the archaeological digs, you take point and lead us there. Chase, you take right flank, Alenko, you bring up the rear. Move out!"

Ordinarily, Second Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko would have resented another officer ordering his marines around; as commander of the _Normandy_ 's ten-man Marine detachment, that was supposed to be _his_ job. But in this case, he didn't mind at all. _Lieutenant Commander Mark John Shepard. This is really happening. I am serving on the combat team of the Lion of Elysium_. As they moved carefully through stands of trees nearly ten feet in diameter, past mossy boulders embedded in babbling brooks, and along sweeping cliffside vistas looking over verdant green fields stretching as far as the eye could see, the small part of Kaidan's mind that wasn't occupied watching his assigned sector appreciated why Eden Prime was one of the most beautiful worlds in Alliance space. _Or at least it would be if the air wasn't choked with smoke from burning farmhouses and the smell of spent munitions. After half a klick of this, I am more than ready for a fight_.

As if echoing his thoughts, the voice of Nihlus, the turian Spectre who had accompanied them on the cruise, broke in over their helmet radios. _Not sure why he was brought along if he isn't going to back us up directly. I don't care if he 'moves faster on his own', there's safety in numbers_. "Got some burned out farmhouses here, Shepard. Lot of bodies. I'm going to reroute, will find a better rendezvous site and send you the coordinates. Nihlus out." Shepard nodded once and gestured for Jenkins to resume the march towards the dig site. They made it barely fifty meters.

Chase heard the noise first. "COVER!" she screamed, and proceeded to throw herself behind the nearest boulder, which Kaidan followed her behind almost immediately. Shepard dove behind a massive tree ten feet to the left. Jenkins hesitated, fatally, his eyes searching the trees and rocks ahead for the source of the high-pitched whine that was rising in volume and intensity with every second. As if in slow motion, Kaidan, peeking out from behind the boulder, saw five drones of some kind, essentially two discs parallel to each other with a gun slung underneath, whiz around the bend in the trail ahead and open fire.

The concentrated fire from five automatic weapons, roughly equivalent in strength to the standard issue Alliance SMG, cut through Jenkins' kinetic barriers in approximately 1.5 seconds, and the ablative armor underneath in another half second. As the young Marine's body slumped to the ground and the drones switched their fire, three to his and Chase's boulder and two to Shepard's tree, Kaidan brought up his omnitool. The orange device flared into existence around his left hand and forearm, and he frantically flipped through the programs and apps on it with the fingers on his left hand. _Damping, Galaxy of Fantasy, Neural Shock, Aunt Rachel's waffle recipes… ah, found it!_ Taking a deep breath, he leaned out of cover, taking care to expose as little of his body as possible, and thrust his left arm at the second drone from the left.

The electrical overload discharge fried that drone's shields, as well as those of the ones to its immediate left and right. A short burst from Chase's assault rifle exploded one into scrap- _weak armor then_ \- even as Kaidan brought his right arm up and across his body in the control gesture for _pull_. The two remaining shielded drones were suddenly sent drifting through the air surrounded by a blue glow, as their engines struggled to overcome the force of the mass effect field Kaidan had surrounded them in. _Ok, Commander, your turn. Finish this_.

Shepard did. A glowing blue _warp_ soared from behind his tree and impacted the out-of-control drones. The two unstable mass effect fields reacted to contact with each other- violently.

 _BOOM_.

The explosion obliterated the two out-of-control drones, and stripped the shields from the remaining two. The combined fire of their three weapons ended them in seconds as well. _From start to finish, over in thirty seconds. That's modern warfare for you_. Chase scrambled out from behind the boulder and ran to Jenkins, Shepard on her heels. Kaidan didn't bother. He knew what had happened, had known since Jenkins' body hit the turf. Chase confirmed it a few seconds later, looking up at Shepard with tears in her eyes. "VSA, sir." _One mistake. One rookie mistake, and it's all over_.

A look of black fury passed over Shepard's features, gone almost as soon as it appeared. He raised his hand to his helmet, opened his intercom, and sent a brief transmission to the _Normandy_. " _Normandy_ , this is Shepard. We have made contact with hostile forces, and Private Jenkins is vital signs absent. Continuing to objective, sending coordinates for corpse retrieval." He lowered his hand and looked at Chase and Kaidan. "Triangle formation. I'll take point. We should be able to find the dig site if we keep moving southwest."

The remaining kilometer and a half of woodland between them and the dig site was swarming with drones, but they took no further casualties, not even minor injuries (other than Kaidan tripping over a large rock at one point). This was partly because the five drones that had killed Jenkins proved to be the largest group that attacked them at once; it was much more common to encounter the things one or two at a time, and never more than three at once. But mostly, it was because they had now figured out how to fight them: an immediate overload from Kaidan, then either a quick burst of weapons fire or a biotic detonation for a group of the things.

As they emerged from the woods overlooking the dig site and began to work their way down the slope towards it, they saw the first survivor they had seen since landing planet-side. A young female Marine in the pink-and-white armor of a qualified medic came tearing out of the excavation, closely pursued by two of the strange drones. As she ran, she dropped a grenade, then dove behind one of the large boulders that seemed to be everywhere on this area of Eden Prime. She rolled, came out the other side of her boulder, and waved her omnitool. The grenade detonated directly under the drones, stripping their shields, and the young Marine finished them off with a long burst from her assault rifle. Kaidan began to rise from his own cover to greet her, but Shepard yanked him back down with a hiss. An instant later, Kaidan saw why.

Two new foes had walked from the dig site. _Walked_ , not flew like the drones which Kaidan now realized must be scouts for these things. They were obviously synthetics, robots of some kind. They had two feet with two toes, two arms with three fingers on each hand (currently clutching an odd blue rifle of some kind). From the neck down they looked roughly like pictures of quarians Kaidan had seen, albeit made of metal and various plastics and polymers. The head, however, was like nothing he'd ever seen: a single large photoreceptor that resembled nothing so much as a large flashlight, shielded on the top and sides by metal plating.

Whatever they were, they were undoubtedly hostile, they were threatening the young Marine who had now ducked back into cover further down the slope, and they were between him and the objective. Kaidan flung out his left arm, activating his overload program yet again- _if it works on their drones, it should work on them_ \- as Shepard and Chase rose from cover on either side of him. The left hand synthetic staggered as its shields went down, although the one on the right managed to duck behind cover itself. The one remaining in the open went down under a hail of bullets from Kaidan's SMG and Shepard and Chase's assault rifles.

The young Marine further down the slope needed no further prompting. Leaning back out of cover, she threw another grenade, this one landing inches next to the concealed synthetic. The detonation tore through shields already weakened by Kaidan's overload, and a spray of white conductive/lubricating fluid blew out from behind the rock.

The young Marine tore off her helmet and turned to greet her rescuers as they made their way over to her. "Thanks for the help. I thought I was done for." Close up and with her helmet off, Kaidan could see dark hair bound up in a bun, and a face that might've been pretty if it wasn't covered in sweat, grime, and blood, though the latter was obviously someone else's. _Makes sense if she's a medic. Although I can't remember the last medic I saw fight like that_. She was obviously exhausted, but attempted to stiffen to attention and salute when she saw the insignia stenciled on Kaidan's and Shepard's hardsuits. "Sir! _Sirs_!"

"At ease, Marine, this isn't the time or place for that," Shepard said, waving off her attempted salute. "What's your name, rank, and unit?"

"Sir! Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Williams, Echo Company, Third Battalion, 212th Colonial Defense Regiment!" _Gunnery Sergeant?_ Now that he looked, Kaidan could indeed see the chevrons stenciled on her pink pauldron. _She can't be more than 25. The youngest gunny I've ever seen, a deadly fighter, and a qualified medic, stuck on garrison duty in the core of Alliance space_?

"Alright. Williams, we're here to secure a Prothean beacon that's supposed to be in the dig site behind you. Is it still there? And where's the rest of your unit?"

"No sir, the beacon was moved to an auxiliary spaceport this morning. I think there was a crew from off-world that was supposed to come pick it up, and the scientists wanted to be helpful. As for my unit…" Her face sagged. "I think I'm the only one left."

"The only one? Of which? Your squad? The company?"

"The 212, sir."

"The _regiment_?! Williams, that's nearly three thousand Marines!" Shepard said sharply.

"I know, sir," Williams said miserably, "but this is one of the core worlds of the Alliance. Nobody was expecting an attack here. The only reason Echo Company were armed and armored this morning was because we had drawn weekly guard duty over the excavation site. The rest of the 212 was on base 30 klicks closer to Constant, sleeping in the barracks. I haven't been able to raise them since the attack hit."

Shepard regained control of himself. "Very well then. Williams, you're now with my squad. This is Second Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, and this is Lance Corporal Addison Chase. I'm Lieutenant Commander Shepard." Kaidan saw Williams' eyes widen at the last name, and flick to the N7 stenciled next to the rank insignia on Shepard's hardsuit. He suppressed a grin. _Why, yes, it is THAT Shepard_. "How far is this spaceport you mentioned?"

"Sir, it's- it's six kilometers away. But- but there's a tram station one klick from here that can get us there in under fifteen minutes."

Shepard raised his hand to his helmet and switched on his radio. "Nihlus, Shepard. I've located the beacon. We'll need to access it via a tram station at a local spaceport. Suggest that as rendezvous, sending coordinates." When Nihlus acknowledged, Shepard lowered his hand from his helmet and looked back at Williams. "Take us there." As Williams nodded, put her helmet back on, and turned towards the dig site, Shepard held up a hand. "One more thing. Do you have any idea what these hostiles are?"

She turned back towards them. "I'm not completely sure, sir, but I think they're geth."

 _Geth_? Suddenly it clicked in Kaidan's head. _No wonder they resemble quarians_. 300 years previously, at the tail end of the 19th century, the geth had been mechanical servants of the quarians, farming their crops, working their industries and generally running their economy. They had constantly received software upgrades to do this job better, and at some point had evolved into true AI. The geth had promptly revolted against the quarians, if Kaidan remembered his history lessons correctly, and in the resulting war had massacred approximately 98% of the quarian species. The few surviving quarians had fled their homeworld and colonies, and had wandered the stars ever since, unable to find a suitable planet to settle, while the geth stayed secluded in former quarian space behind the Perseus Veil nebula. _That is literally on the other side of the galaxy from here. Why would the geth emerge from behind the Veil, for literally the first time ever, just to torch Eden Prime? Is this beacon really that important?_

There were three more geth inside the dig site, all with their backs turned to the north entrance, clustered around a collection of tall spiky objects. Taken completely by surprise, the geth were unceremoniously hosed with bullets and dropped; Kaidan didn't even need to raise his omnitool. Stepping over the ruins of the machines, Kaidan took a closer look at the objects they had been attending, and nearly vomited.

The objects were simple in shape: a tripod meeting about three feet off the ground, and a long metal spike extending another six feet into the air above that. That wasn't the horrible part. The horrible part was the human body skewered at the top of every single spike, with blood slowly dribbling down the silver metal. A few wore lab coats, most wore military fatigues like the ones Kaidan had on under his hardsuit. All were very, very dead, and recently so.

"From your unit?" Chase quietly asked Williams, who had turned white.

"Yes." Williams replied. "That's Xifong there, and… and I think that one's Jamison…"

"Enough." Shepard spoke gently, even as he placed a hand on Williams' shoulder and turned her away from the impaled corpses. "We can't help them now. All we can do is mark the location for later pickup, and stop the motherfuckers who killed them from getting what they want. I need your head in the game, Williams. _Focus_."

Color began to seep back into her face, and she squared her shoulders. "Yes, sir." She hefted her rifle and resumed walking toward the southern exit of the excavation site.

They encountered no resistance for the next three quarters of the one kilometer walk to the tram station. No drones, no geth, though there were quite a few more impaled corpses; Williams led them past these, determinedly not looking at them, her face set. Kaidan barely noticed them; he was too busy worrying about the suspicious lack of hostiles despite the evidence of heavy fighting in the area just hours beforehand. _There's two possibilities here: either the geth are setting up an ambush for us somewhere up ahead, or they're pulling out_. An ambush would be very bad news: the terrain gave any number of locations suitable for one, meaning it would be nigh impossible to predict and avoid. _But that's still preferable to the geth pulling out. Pulling out means they got what they came for and have no more reason to stay_. Kaidan could see from the tense look in Shepard's eyes that he was thinking much the same thing. _We have to pick up the pace_. In the distance, they heard a lone shot ring out.

Williams led them into a clearing with several prefabricated housing units arrayed along its edge, marking it as the base camp of the archaeological team, with several more of the corpse-decorated spikes clustered in the center. "The tram station is just over that rise," she said, gesturing to indicate the direction. "Once we get there we can just-," she faltered as the spikes released some kind of air brake in unison and retracted back into their tripods.

The corpses that had been mounted on them, with nothing to hold them suspended in the air any longer, lay slumped across the tripods for a moment, then _moved_. A noise somewhere between a shriek and a moan emanated from dead throats as they got up and began moving towards the horrified human squad, and Kaidan got his first good look at them.

They had been _changed_. Their skin had grayed and stretched tight over their bones, as if all the water had been sucked out of their bodies. Glowing blue lines of circuitry spider-webbed all over their bodies, and some body parts, like their eyes, had been replaced entirely by cybernetics. Kaidan could see a blue glow coming from the holes the spikes had left in these things: the circuitry was inside them as well.

He leveled his SMG at the closest one and began firing, only to see the bullets bounce off. _Kinetic barriers? But none of these things are wearing anything more substantial than fatigues, where are they putting the generators… Inside them?! The shield generators are inside them?!_ Beside him, Chase was cursing at the top of her lungs, Williams strangely silent, as the two women hosed a creature with assault rifle fire, breaking through its shields and dropping it. Shepard dropped his AR entirely and reached for the shotgun stowed on the small of his back, eviscerating a charging creature with a single blast. Kaidan thrust his left arm forward, overloading the shields of the last one, then thrust his right arm out in the control gesture for _throw_. The thing slammed into the wall of the nearest prefab with bone-breaking force and did not get up.

"What- _what the actual shit_!" Chase stuttered, the adrenaline ebbing back momentarily.

"Those things used to be human," Kaidan said, examining the one Chase and Williams had killed (again).

" _Used to be_ is right," Shepard said grimly, stowing his shotgun again and retrieving his rifle. "We're almost there, people. We have to get that beacon before the geth get away with it." Williams remained silent. _She's numb. Might be on the verge of going into shock._ She had visibly struggled to regain her composure when they had first seen the impaled bodies in the dig site, and the revelation of what those spikes were actually for was too much. _We need to do what we came here for and leave_.

They jogged rapidly over to the rise Williams had indicated, then stopped short. Below them, in a depression, they could see the tram station, barely fifty meters distant and crawling with geth. But that wasn't what gave them pause.

About five kilometers away, at what must have been the auxiliary spaceport, stood a ship. _Stood_ , on five massive tentacles/legs. It was shaped like nothing so much as a cuttlefish from the oceans of Earth, with a metallic mantle and eight smaller legs along what passed for its belly, and it was absolutely colossal. _This far away, and we can make out nearly every detail. The thing must be nearly two kilometers from end to end!_ Even as they watched, the ship began to lift off, moving faster and faster with every second, wreathed in red lightning as it sped into the clouds. Within seconds it was a speck in the distance. _Robot drones, robot soldiers, robot zombies, and now giant flying robot cuttlefish. What the hell is going on here?_

Shepard was the first to recover. "Move," was all he said, before charging down the slope towards the tram station rifle blazing. Taken by surprise, the nearly dozen geth occupying the tram station quickly recovered and began to fire at him, but Shepard had reinforced his own shields with a biotic _barrier_. He pitched a grenade into the midst of the geth, taking down two and stripping the shields off three more. Kaidan, following behind, yanked those off the ground with a _pull_ field, to which Shepard applied a _warp_.

BOOM.

The few remaining geth were dealt with in a storm of weapons fire, and just like that the tram station was clear. Kaidan looked around to make sure everyone was okay, and was pleased to see that, for the most part, everyone was. Chase had caught a round in the left bicep, the first injury anyone in the party had suffered since Jenkins' death, but it was fairly minor. Even as Kaidan watched, Williams moved over to help and detachedly applied medigel. Having collected themselves, the squad moved into the tram station, towards the platform with a docked tram that would take them to the spaceport, only to stop short yet again as they beheld approximately their sixth shocking development of the day.

A turian body lay facedown on the floor of the platform in a pool of congealing dark blue blood. A turian body in heavy red-and-black armor with the insignia of the Spectres on its pauldron.

 _Nihlus_.

Shepard swore and began to move toward the body, then stopped, swiveling towards a dark corner of the platform, bringing his rifle to bear on some noise that only he had apparently heard. "You! Come out with your hands in the air!"

As Kaidan, Williams, and Chase swung about to point their own weapons in the direction indicated, a short, thin man wearing a dockworker's uniform and a stocking cap emerged trembling from behind the crates that had been stacked in the corner.

Shepard moved toward him, frowning, but lowering his rifle. "How long have you been back there?"

"Hours. I was back behind the crates before the attack started. These… robot… things, came down from nowhere, along with that giant mothership at the spaceport, and killed everyone else that was on shift. I was terrified they were going to find me too. I thought…"

"Wait," Chase said suspiciously. "If you were on shift too, what were you doing behind the crates in the first place?"

"I, uh, I was sleeping. Sometimes I need a nap to get through my shift, so I sneak behind the crates and grab forty winks where the supervisor can't find me."

" _You survived because you're lazy?!_ " Chase began, an ominous glint in her eye, before Shepard cut her off with a sharp motion of his hand.

"Chase, that isn't relevant at all right now. What is relevant is this: _did you see what happened there?_ " Shepard indicated Nihlus' corpse.

"I did. He was shot by that other turian."

"What other turian? Tell me everything you saw. Kaidan, record this." Shepard moved closer to the dockworker, gazing at him intently as Kaidan accessed his omnitool.

"It was about twenty minutes ago," the dockworker began. _Just before we encountered the husks_ , Kaidan realized. _We heard that single shot in the distance_ …. "There weren't any of the robot things here then, they'd all gotten on the tram to the spaceport and left. There was just this one turian. I haven't really seen many turians before, but this one seemed like he was bulkier than most, broader in the shoulders. He didn't have any facepaint on like they usually do. Then your friend came into the terminal. He seemed like he was ready for a fight, but he relaxed as soon as he saw the one that was already here. He seemed surprised, but relieved, I guess. I don't really know turian emotions that well. He called the one already here 'Saren'. They talked for a minute or so, then your friend turned his back for a moment, and… 'Saren' shot him. Point-blank, right up against the back of his head." _At that close of a range it would have bypassed Nihlus' kinetic barriers. One would have been all that was needed_. "Then 'Saren' got on that tram and went to the spaceport," the dockworker indicated an empty siding, "and that tram," he indicated the one waiting at the platform, "arrived filled with more of those robot things, the ones you just killed. That's all I saw."

Kaidan looked at Shepard. "Sir, those geth were a rear guard. Meant to stop us or delay us at the least. They still care if we make it to the spaceport."

Shepard nodded. "Which means there's still a chance to stop them from finding the beacon. Come on!" They piled into the tram and hit the button for the spaceport, leaving the dockworker to crawl back behind his crates.

The fifteen minute tram ride to the auxiliary spaceport passed uneventfully, for which Kaidan was thankful. It gave him time to drink some water, catch his breath, and rest for a few precious moments, the first he'd had since landing on this planet. He would've been irritated in any case when it came to an end, but he was especially irritated when the tram pulled into the platform at the spaceport and they saw what was waiting for them there.

A nearly six foot long fusion bomb lay on the platform, obviously activated, placidly beeping away the seconds to the obliteration of everything within a 50 mile radius: which would probably include most of Constant, if Kaidan remembered the numbers right. _Oh, for the love of…_

"Kaidan! Defuse that! NOW!" Shepard yelled as he, Chase, and Williams charged off the tram to engage the six geth that had entered the terminal to engage them. Kaidan hurried to obey. The mechanism of the bomb was radically different than the ones he had trained on, and someone with less focus or experience handling explosives might have panicked, but Kaidan quickly gained his bearings in the bomb's workings. _Timing mechanism here, which leads to this, which means this must be the detonator for the conventional explosive primer_ … Kaidan carefully separated the detonator from the primer, oh so carefully. _No detonator, no conventional explosion, no nuclear explosion. Works every time_. He checked the time remaining on the timing mechanism, the amount of time that had been left before the spaceport vanished in nuclear fire. One minute, twenty-two seconds.

In comparison to that, dealing with the nearly forty geth, as well as twenty-odd husks, infesting the spaceport was rather relaxing. But only in comparison.

With the bomb defused and the objective within their grasp, they were finally able to afford the luxury of moving slowly and methodically. They would have been forced to in any case, as the sheer volume of fire coming from the geth kept them suppressed, slowly inching forward from cover to cover. The husks served to make the situation ten times worse, rushing them, attempting to grapple with them and flushing them from cover. Williams and Chase were each forced to backpedal furiously out of cover once as they gunned down a charging husk, exposing themselves to a storm of geth weapons fire and only surviving due to Shepard and Kaidan placing biotic _barriers_ to reinforce their failing shields.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of slowly picking off the geth one by one, the last synthetic fell into a sparking heap. Kaidan let out a sigh of relief as they moved towards the transport docks, where the beacon likely would have been stored by the scientists in anticipation of the _Normandy_ 's arrival. _They wanted to be helpful. The irony_.

They found the beacon on the edge of Cargo Terminal B1, the largest in the auxiliary spaceport, designed to accommodate a Kowloon-class freighter. _They were obviously misinformed about just how this thing would be transported_. The beacon was a tall spire of dark green metal, almost twelve feet tall. It would've been interesting enough, except that it was also _glowing_. A halo of bright green light surrounded it, wreathing it in a flickering aura.

"It wasn't doing anything like that when they dug it up," Williams said, speaking for the first time since they'd seen the first husks. "The geth must have activated it somehow." A spark of interest had returned to her eyes, and she moved to examine it more closely.

Shepard raised his hand to his helmet. " _Normandy_ , Shepard. The beacon is secure. Cargo Terminal B1, Deucalon Spaceport. Requesting evacuation ASAP."

"Copy that, sir," Joker's voice came back. "ETA ten minutes. Strangest thing, all geth ships, including their flagship, have pulled out within the last twenty minutes, along with most of their ground forces. Only getting scattered reports of holdouts, none near you. Shouldn't be anything interfering with pickup."

"Copy that. Shepard out." Shepard lowered his hand and looked at Kaidan and Chase, who had clustered around him. "They pulled out. They got what they wanted and left."

"The beacon's still here, Commander," Kaidan pointed out, trying to fight the growing feeling of uneasiness within him.

"What is a Prothean beacon, Kaidan? It's a method for storing and transmitting information. The physical structure doesn't matter, the information it houses does. That bomb on the tram platform wasn't put there out of vindictiveness. The geth must have figured out how to retrieve the information they wanted from the beacon, then put the bomb there to make sure nobody else did. Somehow they-," Shepard's eyes suddenly widened in horror, and he shoved past Kaidan and Chase, running for the beacon. They wheeled round on the spot, trying to see what had caught his attention.

They didn't need to look long. The beacon, which had been gently wreathed in a green glow when they first entered the cargo terminal, was now positively incandescent. Williams, who had approached to within ten feet, was being slowly dragged towards it by invisible forces, her arms flailing and her feet scraping on the metal deck as she tried to resist. Shepard lunged towards her, grabbed her around the waist, used his momentum and a flicker of his biotics to rip her out of the beacon's grasp and throw her clear… only to be caught by the thing in turn.

Kaidan watched in disbelief as Shepard was dragged within five feet of the beacon, then yanked into the air. Spread-eagled, hovering before the beacon, every muscle in the Commander's body went rigid, his mouth twisting in a snarl. He hovered this way for approximately fifteen seconds before the beacon released him.

Commander Shepard smacked into the deck of the cargo terminal, as the Prothean beacon disintegrated.


	3. M Shepard I

_**2000 Hours AST, April 13, 2183**_

 _ **Medical Bay, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Interstellar Space, en route to The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

 __The images flashed before his eyes in a seemingly endless loop. A broken record of horror.

 _Smoke._

 _Ash._

 _Fire and blood._

 _War, the fighting dissolving into rank butchery almost as quickly as it had begun._

He couldn't begin to say how long he lay there, watching the nightmare repeat itself again and again in a series of discordant flashes.

 _Burning stars. Burning planets. Burning nations. Burning people._

 _Synthetics, ruthlessly hunting organics._

 _Circuitry and wiring invading flesh, molding, tearing, changing._

At some point- he couldn't say when, it might have been after thirty seconds or thirty days or thirty years- the images began to slowly fade, still endlessly repeating themselves. In their wake they left a series of feelings that were nearly as discordant and confused as the images themselves. Regret. Rage. Grief. And underlying them all, _warning_.

Even when those too faded away, and he gradually became aware that he was lying on a bed of some sort, he remained still for some time more, staring at the inside of his eyelids and trying to impose some order on it all.

It didn't work. Eventually, he surrendered to the inevitable: no matter how much time had passed, no matter where the bed he was lying in was located, he was going to have to get up out of it and rejoin the real world. To that end, he tensed the muscles in his abdomen and back, preparing to sit up, and immediately regretted it. He was sore all over, and a groan escaped his lips. _If only rejoining the real world didn't hurt so much_.

"Doctor? Doctor Chakwas? I think he's waking up!" The voice of a young woman, vaguely familiar. Shepard's eyes fluttered open, and after a moment he recognized the Normandy's medical bay. He forced himself into a sitting position, ignoring the pain, and leaned back against the headboard of the sickbed.

The sound of a creaking chair turned his head to his left. The Normandy's medical officer, Doctor Karin Chakwas, rose from her desk and walked over to him. A woman of average height with iron gray hair, a kindly face, and an Oxford accent, Dr. Chakwas had been serving the Systems Alliance Navy in various medical capacities for more than thirty years. She had helped treat the first waves of casualties coming into the orbiting hospital ships during the liberation of Shanxi, and now peered down into his face with an expression of some concern. "You had us quite worried for a while there, Commander. You were out for nearly thirteen hours. How are you feeling?"

"Like I was run over by a herd of rhinoceros." _And possibly one of those shatha from turian space._ "Give it to me straight, Doc. What's the damage?"

"In truth? Nothing major. You have minor bruises and contusions all over from the approximately five hours of combat operations you engaged in on Eden Prime, which will account for any soreness you're feeling, as well as a lightly sprained left ankle from when the beacon dropped you to the ground, which I would advise you to go lightly on for the next day or so. Physically, there is no need for you to remain in this medbay."

"I find that… somewhat hard to believe," Shepard said, wincing at the ache in his side.

"Nevertheless, it is the truth. There is no permanent damage, and you should feel back to normal within the next 48 hours at most." Chakwas peered into his face again, the concerned look still on her face. "But it is not your body that concerns me. I detected highly abnormal beta waves in your cerebral cortex in a pattern normally associated with intense dreaming. There's no telling what information that beacon jammed into your head, and given what happened to it, it may have been defective. What did you see?"

 _The beacon. The whole point of the op_. If something had happened to it, if Jenkins and Nihlus had died in vain… "What do you mean, 'given what happened to the beacon'? Where is it?" Shepard asked, dodging her question for the time being.

"It disintegrated." The terrible words, delivered in the vaguely familiar voice he had heard upon waking up, came from his right. Shepard turned his head and saw the young female Marine from Eden Prime standing there with her eyes downcast. _Ashley Williams._ She had taken off her pink-and-white medic armor and now wore a set of ill-fitting dark blue casual duty Navy fatigues. "It's my fault. I must've triggered something when I approached it, and you ended up taking the hit." Williams raised her eyes to his, and Shepard saw something uncomfortably close to hero worship in them. "You rescued me. Again."

"No, it's not your fault," Shepard firmly contradicted her. "You had no possible way of knowing that would happen." A faint blush rose in her cheeks. _Oh, great_.

He was spared the necessity of continuing the conversation by the hiss of the med bay doors opening and Captain Anderson striding in. "Glad to see you're up, Shepard. How're you feeling?" Not giving him a chance to answer, Anderson turned to Dr. Chakwas. "I'm terribly sorry to kick you out of your own medbay, Doctor, but I need to speak with my XO in private. I'll try not to take too long."

"Of course, Captain." Chakwas turned and strode briskly out of the med bay, Williams following on her heels. The door slid shut behind them, and an uncomfortable silence descended over the med bay. Shepard looked around, seeing for the first time the body bags occupying two of the bay's five other beds. One of the bags was clearly stuffed nearly to its breaking point with a non-human form. _Jenkins and Nihlus. They recovered the bodies, then._

"Sir," Shepard began, unable to bear the tension, "the beacon-,"

"I caught what you said to Williams as I came in, Shepard. The same applies to you. You had no way of knowing what would happen, and acted to save a fellow soldier in danger. You're a hero as far as I'm concerned, and the beacon's destruction was a terrible accident that couldn't have been foreseen or prevented."

He should have known better than to think Anderson would judge him harshly. The man had been friends with Shepard's parents since before Shepard was born, and had served as a surrogate father to him in his youth after his birth father had died defending Shanxi. When Shepard had joined the Navy himself and entered the Special Operations division, Anderson had mentored him through the brutal training. The man had always looked out for him.

"What matters now, though, is where we go from here." Anderson continued. "I know you're clean of any wrongdoing or incompetence here, Shepard, but we can't count on the Council to see it that way. From their perspective, this mission was an utter catastrophe." _Can't say I disagree with that._ "The beacon was destroyed, and whatever information it contained almost entirely lost for good. Spectre Nihlus Kryik, one of their best operatives, is dead. And there's the recording you had Lieutenant Alenko take concerning the manner of Nihlus' death."

"He was shot in the back by another turian. Someone named Saren." Shepard remembered.

"Saren Arterius is the most decorated and valuable Spectre currently active. Nihlus was elite, but Saren is as good as it gets. He's the one the Council turns to when the situation is life or death, and we are proposing to accuse him of treason and terrorism. It will be vastly easier and more convenient for the Council to simply blame the incompetent human and let Saren get away with mass murder." A shadow crossed Anderson's face as he said that. "I am telling you this to make sure you are on your guard. We will be docking at the Citadel within the next three hours, and you are undoubtedly going to have to face the Council in person to give your account. Expect a hostile audience."

Shepard nodded soberly. A thought struck him, something to do with a peculiar turn of phrase Anderson had used earlier. "Sir, you said the information within the beacon was _almost_ entirely lost?"

"That's the other main reason for this private interview. I saw Dr. Chakwas' readouts. That beacon downloaded something into your brain before it disintegrated. And I am certain that whatever you saw, Saren saw too, and almost certainly in a more complete form. I need to know, Shepard: _what did you see?_ "

He struggled to find the proper words to summarize the images. "I saw… I'm honestly not sure how to describe it. I saw synthetics slaughtering people, butchering them. War and destruction. It wasn't any miracle technological blueprint like the scientists were probably hoping for, it felt more like… a warning."

"Hmmm." Anderson considered that for a moment, then stood. "Those are the important points we needed to get out of the way here, Shepard. The rest can wait until we get to the Citadel and meet Ambassador Udina. As I said, there's still a few more hours before we make it to the Citadel. Unpleasant as it might be, I advise getting started on the mountain of paperwork that was waiting for you from the moment you became executive officer, and has only become more extensive in the time since. Invading robots or no, Naval bureaucracy will have its due." Anderson moved to leave, but Shepard called after him.

"Sir, I have one more question of my own." Anderson turned to look at him with his eyebrow raised. "Gunnery Sergeant Williams isn't part of the _Normandy_ 's crew. What is she doing onboard?"

"She is now, Shepard. She performed to a very high standard on Eden Prime, and we had a vacancy in the Marine detachment with the death of Jenkins. I included my request for her in the mission report to Arcturus Command. Was able to skip the usual red tape that way."

"But-," Shepard searched for an excuse. _All of that is true, but I don't need another admirer._ "Gunnery Sergeant Williams already has a unit," he offered, fully aware of how lame it was.

Anderson frowned. "The 212th CDR, for all intents and purposes, has ceased to exist, Shepard. I've included the preliminary figures in your inbox, but suffice it to say that Williams' old unit was savaged to the point that it would not have been considered worth reconstituting. She would have been reassigned in any case, and it was both convenient and fitting to take her here." Anderson turned back towards the door of the med bay. "We both have a lot to do and a short time to do it in. I'll see you when we arrive at the Citadel." With that, he strode back out of the door.

Shepard sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments longer, then sighed, painfully got up, and left the med bay as well, passing Dr. Chakwas as she moved back in. _He's not wrong. There's a lot that I need to do, quite a bit that I hadn't managed to get done before we entered the Utopia system._ He directed his steps to the wardroom.

The Normandy was much too small a warship to have individual quarters for anyone but the commanding officer. The forty naval crewmen shared one set of crew quarters with twenty bunks, the ten officers shared another with five, and the ten Marines had five cots in the staging area. In each case, off-duty crewmen would sleep in the bunk or cot assigned to them and a partner, then hop out when the shifts changed, a practice known as "hot bunking." For office space, the officers had a communal wardroom, which on the Normandy was approximately the size of a walk-in closet. _Or just a broom closet_ , Shepard thought as he entered it.

He sighed again, activated his personal computer, and pulled up the Eden Prime reports. Anderson had, if anything, understated the carnage. Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Madeline Williams had not, as she had feared, been the only survivor of the three thousand Marine 212th Colonial Defense Regiment. She had been one of five, and the only one not either critically injured or found babbling in a hole. The barracks of the 212th had been razed to the ground in the initial geth assault, and with them all of Williams' personal possessions other than her armor, rifle, and field kit. _That explains the two sizes too large Navy fatigues_. The other two constituent formations of the Fourth Marine Garrison Division had made out better. The 213th, to the northeast of Constant, had taken heavy casualties as well, but enough Marines remained (over 50%) that its ranks would be replenished in due course. The 109th had been on exercise on the other side of the planet and had gone completely unscathed. Civilian casualties in and around Constant, the planet's capital and largest city, were still being tallied, but the final toll was expected to be well north of a hundred thousand.

Shepard drummed his fingers on the edge of the painfully small wardroom table. He was acting unfairly. Williams _had_ indeed fought brilliantly on Eden Prime, there _was_ a vacancy in the Normandy's Marine detachment, and if he was going to be brutally honest, she would be a straight upgrade over Jenkins. She had more than earned a fleet posting. He could not, in fairness, be upset at her for a bit of hero worship either. He'd seen the look on her face when he first introduced himself, and had known exactly why it was there. _Elysium. It always comes back to Elysium_. Alenko had been awed as well when he realized who the XO was. _But Alenko's not going to try to get in my pants_.

That was the crux of the matter. To cover up their own failure in allowing the Skyllian Blitz to happen, the brass of the Systems Alliance Navy deflected all of the attention onto him. Humanity's highest honor, the Star of Terra, had been placed around his neck in the central plaza of Illyria, Elysium's capital city, newly renamed in his honor. He had become an instant celebrity. And like all celebrities, he gained admirers. _There were women throwing their panties on the stage at the decoration ceremony._ Another man might've thought he'd died and gone to heaven; Shepard had been equal parts embarrassed and insulted. He was not the sort of man to take advantage of star-struck fangirls, infatuated with the image the media had created. _The Lion of Elysium. The Hero of the Blitz. Accepting employment as a journalist ought to be a capital crime._ It had gotten to the point where he deliberately took as little shore leave as possible, the better to avoid the legions of admirers. It might've worked, except the Alliance spread his heroic portrayal within its own ranks as well. To hide their own failures, they had ended up hiding his as well. _Everyone knows about Elysium. No one gives a damn about Akuze_.

He shook his head. Williams would deal with her crush on him, as well as the issues she had to be suffering from the annihilation of her unit, or she would not. If she could move past the baggage, he had zero doubt she'd be an excellent member of the crew. If not…

He dismissed the Eden Prime report and reluctantly got to work on the mountain of forms awaiting him.

 _ **2300 Hours AST, April 13, 2183**_

 _ **Wardroom, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Citadel Approach, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

The next two and a half hours were tedious in the extreme, but nevertheless productive: Shepard managed to make a fair dent in the various requisition forms, personnel transfer authorizations, and pay packets that had piled up in his inbox in the past 72 hours. It was a relief when Shepard felt the slight lurch in his stomach that always came with transition through a mass relay, and heard Captain Anderson's voice come over the intercom. "We have entered the Widow system and are on course to dock with the Citadel in half an hour. All on duty personnel make ready for docking procedures."

Shepard glanced at the time. _2230 hours. Right on schedule_. Space around the Citadel was much too congested to allow for point FTL jumps, so the trip in from the relay would be entirely at sub-light speeds. This would allow him some badly needed time in the shower.

He emerged fifteen minutes later, dripping wet, and changed into a set of fresh fatigues. He then proceeded up the stairs from the crew deck and headed towards the bridge. The various docking clearances would be handled by the captain, and the actual docking by the pilot, so there was nothing for him to have done even if he was actually on duty. This left him free to look out the window and behold one of the most breathtaking sights in the galaxy.

Shepard could see the luminous pink glow through the open doors of the bridge even before he stepped through them, and knew from the excited voices that Williams and Alenko were already there.

"Look at the size of that ship! It must be four times the tonnage of the _Aconcagua_!"

"Yeah, well, size isn't everything."

"Ooh, why so touchy, Flight Lieutenant?"

The ship in question, the _Destiny Ascension_ , slowly floated past the viewports. The Citadel Defense Fleet was composed of contingents from each of the three Council species, divided equally by tonnage. The _Ascension_ , a superdreadnought bigger by far than any other warship in the galaxy, made up two thirds of the asari contingent by itself. A dozen turian cruisers trailed along after the flagship as it continued its patrol around the mighty space station that now opened up beneath them, backlit by the white glow of the star Widow and the pink mists of the Serpent Nebula.

Shepard knew from a glance at Williams' and Alenko's stunned faces that this was the first time either of them had ever actually been to the Citadel. He himself had been here twice before, but the sight still took his own breath away. _I think this is one of those views that never gets old no matter how many times you see it._

Supposedly constructed by the ancient Protheans who had ruled the galaxy fifty thousand years ago, the same species that had built the mass relays and the beacons and whose technology informed all modern progress, the Citadel was simply enormous. Consisting of five massive arms, called the Wards, each of which measured 43.6 kilometers long and 6.2 kilometers wide, all joined at equal intervals along the great ring of the Presidium, 7.2 kilometers in diameter, the station rotated at a deceptively slow speed, enough to provide the glittering cityscape that coated the interior surface of each Ward arm with near Earth standard gravity and hold a breathable atmosphere. The total surface area of the interior surface of the Wards was roughly equivalent to New York City on Earth; including the Presidium, the residence of the station's wealthiest and most important, the station's total population was just over 13 million, of which 2.5 million were human. _And the most important people on this station are the most important people anywhere._ For over two thousand years, ever since the asari and salarians had first formed the Citadel Council, this station had been the capital of the galaxy.

The _Normandy_ soared into the embrace of the Citadel, decelerating rapidly, heading for the Presidium, where the official spaceports of all races officially under the Council's authority were located. Shepard watched as the Wards slid past above, beneath, and alongside the ship. Each of them had their own name. _Tayseri Ward, Zakera Ward, Kithoi Ward, Bachjret Ward, and… agh, I can't remember the last one_. They each had their own city council as well, overseeing the mundane rules and regulations that governed the day to day lives of the millions of beings that had the money to call a Ward arm home. The cost of living on this deep-space station, where all food and most manufactured goods had to be imported from another star system, was astronomical. _Heh. "Astronomical"._

The _Normandy_ slowly entered its assigned docking bay, and came to a stop as magnetic clamps attached to its engines and hull. A click of polished dress shoes announced the arrival of Captain Anderson on the bridge. "Commander Shepard. Lieutenant Alenko. Gunnery Sergeant Williams. Good to see you're all in one place, it'll save me the trouble of chasing you each down individually. I'm going to need you three to come with me to Ambassador Udina's office, where we'll wait for the Council to hear our accounts of Eden Prime. Corporal Chase is already waiting for us in the airlock. Come, it's best to be punctual with this sort of thing."

Once out of the ship, a simple wave of ID was enough to clear them through the security checkpoint of the Systems Alliance's private docks, guarded by a pair of very bored-looking Marines. The five of them then entered an elevator for the short trip to the interior of the Presidium.

Unlike the Wards, where anyone who looked out a window was greeted with a view of a cityscape silhouetted against the glory of the Serpent Nebula, the business tycoons and government functionaries who dwelt on the inner surface of the Presidium ring lived in a carefully maintained setting of artificial parkland with a holographically-projected blue sky covering the space that would otherwise look out across to the other side of the ring. Where the Wards existed in a state of constant bustle and activity, the artificial sky and more controlled environment allowed for a day/night cycle in the Presidium. Currently, it was "nighttime", but events of galactic importance such as the one that Ambassador Udina was arranging an emergency session of the Council to discuss did not wait for such petty things as sleep schedules. _At least it means reduced traffic_ , Shepard mused as the five of them piled into an Alliance-owned skycar and took off towards the human embassy.

The darkened white terraces of the Presidium's buildings and the glassy black surface of the lake that ran the entire inner surface of the ring flitted beneath them as their skycar flew towards its programmed destination. After about a ten minute drive, it decelerated, then came to a gentle stop at the front of the building that communally housed the embassies of humanity, the volus, and the elcor.

A man of slightly below average height with close cropped gray hair was waiting for them in the front of the building. "Anderson. I see you decided to bring half of your crew with you." Despite having been to the Citadel twice before, Shepard had never met humanity's ambassador, Donnel Udina. He took an instant dislike to the man, for reasons he could not quite put his finger on. _I think it's the voice. Anyone who sounds like that is almost certainly an utter jackass._ "I seem to recall messaging you that your presence and only yours would be required for now. The official hearing is not until tomorrow."

"This is the ground crew from Eden Prime," Anderson replied coolly. "I thought you might wish to hear each of their accounts in person. It will allow us to refine the argument we intend to present the Council and which pieces of evidence are most crucial."

Udina's eyes narrowed, considering Anderson's words. _What kind of politician are you, if that hadn't already occurred to you?_ "Perhaps so. Follow me, then. We'll need to conduct these debriefings in my office." He turned and led them into the building, up two flights of stairs, and into an expansive office with an open wall looking out over the expanse of the darkened Presidium. Udina sat down behind the magnificent desk in the center of the room and looked them over. "You there, young lady," he said, indicating Chase, "We'll start with you. I'll want to hear everything that happened on Eden Prime, from the moment you landed there until the moment you left." _Perhaps he thinks Chase can be more easily intimidated because she's the lowest ranking of us._

The debriefings lasted for two more hours, the ambassador taking precisely thirty minutes to grill each of them. By the end of it, Shepard felt his opinion of the man change somewhat from the distinctly negative first impression he had formed. _He's still a jackass, but he was obviously a lawyer before he became our ambassador, and a good one at that_. Udina had pressed them all for every scrap of detail they could remember, pouncing on any discrepancy between two given versions of the events of Eden Prime. He had been particularly intense with Williams, as she had been the only one present on the planet when it was first attacked and offered a unique perspective. The poor Marine was pale by the end of it, having relived the destruction of her unit and the deaths of her friends and comrades. _Jackass? No, scratch that, he's a grade-A douchebag. But if this helps us prove Saren's guilt…_

"Let me see if I have the essence of your stories, then," Udina said, leaning back in his armchair and steepling his fingers. "You," he indicated Williams, "and your company were guarding the excavation site where the beacon had been discovered, when you were suddenly attacked by hostile synthetics. Your unit attempted to signal for help, and were slowly cut to pieces over a period of some hours by these synthetics, which you tentatively identified as geth based on pictures from your high school history classes. Meanwhile you three," he nodded in the direction of Shepard, Alenko, and Chase, "landed some distance from the dig site in the company of a fourth Marine, who was killed within forty-five minutes of landing. You fought your way towards the dig site, joined up with Williams and from her learned the identity of the geth. You also learned from her the new location of the beacon. You encountered several impaled human corpses which had been somehow transformed into cyborg zombies, and saw a dreadnought of some kind from a distance that you guessed to mass at least half again the tonnage of the _Destiny Ascension_. You then proceeded to the transport station that would take you to the new location of the beacon, where you encountered the corpse of Nihlus and a single civilian who blamed Nihlus' death on Saren Arterius. You then proceeded to the spaceport, where you disarmed a nuclear device that was conveniently placed directly on the transport platform, and then found the beacon, which fell apart, but only after it beamed a message of some kind into your head." He nodded at Shepard again. "Is this accurate?"

Shepard's face felt hot, but he nodded anyway. It sounded so ridiculous when the ambassador phrased it like that, here in this serene, air-conditioned office. "It is." _You wouldn't have that look of disdain on your face if you'd been there with us, Ambassador._ There was a pregnant pause.

"I see," Donnel Udina eventually said. He got up from his desk. "You'll need to excuse me. The five of you will need to attend the official hearing in twelve hours, and I'll need to make sure you have the necessary clearance to get in. The Council chambers are off-limits to anyone without proper credentials even under normal circumstances, and this will be a closed session. The embassy has quarters for certain of its staff. You may sleep there, or attempt to sample some of the Presidium's shops and cafes when the day cycle begins in another three hours. On no account are you to leave the Presidium. I will need you close by to collect you when the time comes." Without further ado, he left his office.

Williams let out a shaky breath. "And that's why I hate politicians."

"He's not a politician," Anderson said grimly. "He's a bureaucrat. Believe me, I know the difference." They all looked at him. Anderson gave a bleak smile. "Unlike the rest of you, I've been coming to the Citadel for… various reasons, since just a few years after First Contact, well before Udina was here. I worked with his predecessor, Anita Goyle. _She_ was a politician. Subtle, charismatic when she so desired, a career diplomat. Udina has the subtlety of a tornado and the charisma of an unwashed hockey jersey. Humanity has a rather negative reputation among the greater galactic community for a variety of reasons, and Udina is one of them."

"Then why-," Alenko began incredulously.

"Why hasn't he been fired?" Anderson said, still wearing that bleak smile. "For the same reason he was hired. Goyle, being a diplomat, made friends in foreign governments. Udina, being a bureaucrat, made friends in his own government. He's on a first-name basis with every member of the current cabinet in the Alliance Parliament, and half of the representatives as well. He'd need to murder someone in broad daylight for a recall motion to even be considered, and even then it'd probably fail." Anderson shook his head. "To give the man his due, he's not entirely bad. You saw firsthand how perceptive and tenacious he can be when he puts his mind to something. He consistently works towards what he sees as humanity's best interests here. He just has a habit of stepping on toes to do so." There was another pause.

"Well," Shepard said, standing and stretching, "I appreciate the ambassador's offer of the embassy quarters, but I think I've spent more than enough time lying down in the last few hours. If we're going to be stuck on the Presidium for the next twelve hours, we might as well make the most of it. I'm going to look around, might grab something to eat when the cafes open up. Anyone else want to come along?" One by one, they shook their heads.

"Commander, you may have been unconscious for thirteen hours, but the rest of us were on duty for most of that time," Alenko pointed out. "We definitely need our beauty sleep if we have to face the Council later today. We might meet you for lunch, though."

Shepard shrugged. "Have it your way. Message my omnitool when you're ready to meet up. If nobody else is coming right now, then I guess I should go."

 _ **1300 Hours AST, April 14, 2183**_

 _ **Council Tower**_

 _ **The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

It had been, Shepard decided as the elevator made the sharp turn that indicated they had finished moving out along the spar that held the Council Tower in the precise center of the Presidium ring and were now moving up along the Tower itself, a rather pleasant day for a change. He had spent the three hours immediately following the end of the meeting with Ambassador Udina wandering the lakefront along the Presidium, admiring the quiet beauty of the parkland and white terraces that curved up and out of sight in either direction. When the artificial sky had abruptly begun to lighten and life began to return to the Presidium, he began exploring. He visited shops. He returned to the embassy building and managed to get a few minutes conversation each with the volus and elcor ambassadors: the elcor had been polite and friendly, the volus decidedly not. He helped a Citadel Security officer convince an obstinate hanar that the sidewalk in front of a chic boutique offering only the latest Thessian fashions was not the proper place to be loudly preaching its religion. At 1100, he had met up with Alenko, Williams, and Chase, and they had grabbed lunch at an absurdly expensive café that was apparently one of the cheapest on the Presidium. At least, Shepard thought, the food had been worth the price tag. _I still can't believe they managed to get real pulled pork here_. _And actual, Carolina mustard-based barbecue sauce!_ It was almost enough to compensate for costing him roughly two weeks salary.

But all good things had to come to an end, and now they had to face the Council. It was a good thing, Shepard decided as the elevator ticked closer to their meeting with the three most powerful people in the galaxy, that this was going to be a closed session. _I don't know if I could handle the usual paparazzi that show up whenever I'm in a public forum, shoving their microphones in my face and asking why the Lion of Elysium is accusing Spectre Saren of treason._ Instead, he'd only have to deal with the Councilors themselves. Udina had said something about Saren himself being present as well. _They must have summoned him here when told of our accusations_.

The elevator slowed to a halt, and the doors slid open with a _ding_. Udina led the way as they stepped out into the Council chambers. There were three separate flights of stairs leading to the Petitioner's Stage, where ambassadors and others on the Council's schedule laid their various proposals and grievances before them. Along either wall, viewing galleries which normally contained the press and minor government functionaries stood empty.

There were only three other people besides themselves in the vast room. The Citadel Council stood behind their holographic podiums opposite the Petitioner's Stage, across a gap with a floor of thin glass. Shepard quickly recalled the terse briefing Udina had given them before they entered the elevator.

On the right stood Councilor Valern, the salarian representative. He was male, an unusual thing in a species where 90% of the population was male but the females held nearly all political power. _For a male salarian to hold such an important position… he's either unusually brilliant even for a salarian, or an easily manipulated puppet._ Shepard instinctually had trouble believing the second possibility. _Surely the salarians wouldn't give their Council seat to a total nonentity._ Valern's large, amphibian eyes stared at them from the depths of his hood.

In the center stood asari Councilor Tevos. When humanity had been introduced to the greater galactic community immediately following the First Contact War, it was the asari who aroused, in all senses of the word, the most interest. Asari, on first glance, were essentially human women with blue scaly skin and tentacle-like cartilaginous structures where human women had hair. They had five fingers, five toes, breasts, and nearly identical facial structures. Yet there were several key differences. Chief among them was the fact that asari routinely lived for a thousand years or more. Tevos had been the asari Councilor for the last eighty years, easily three times as long as the tenures of her two colleagues combined, and had been active in asari domestic politics for several centuries before that. Elegantly beautiful in a long, floor length red-and-white dress, Tevos's face was an unreadable mask underneath its elaborate array of white markings.

On the left stood Councilor Sparatus. Shepard had more experience dealing with turians than he did asari or salarians; despite the fact that humanity's first encounter with an alien species had been a brief but bloody war with the turians that left thousands on both sides dead, the two militaries had established strong informal ties in the more than two decades since. He prided himself on being able to distinguish the minute clues in the mostly immobile face of a turian that gave away their state of mind (the key was the mandibles), and what he saw on Sparatus's face now took him aback. In stark contrast to his poker-faced colleagues, the turian Councilor radiated hostility. Right mandible twitching rapidly, left one held rigid and relatively high along his jaw. Behind and to Sparatus's right, a hologram stood of another turian. _Saren_. Shepard would've been hard-pressed to say which turian looked angrier.

Tevos spoke first. "This hearing has been called to hear evidence on the charges of treason and terrorism leveled by the Systems Alliance, as represented by its ambassador, Donnel Udina, against Council Spectre Saren Arterius." She gazed at Udina, her face still serene and composed. "Since the Alliance first notified this Council of its accusations twenty-four standard hours ago, Citadel Security has been conducting an investigation into the recent activities of Spectre Saren. Their findings," she tapped a brief command into her console, and the omnitools of the six humans chimed in unison as they received the data, "are now available to you. Ambassador, do you have anything of relevance to add to these findings?"

Udina stepped forward, his chest thrust out. "I do, Councilors. As you are aware, given that it was mentioned in the original charges laid by the Alliance, our frigate the SSV _Normandy_ was the first vessel to respond to the distress calls sent out by Eden Prime. I have here with me the ground team sent to the colony by the frigate, as well as the ship's commander. Having had a chance to debrief them myself prior to this hearing-,"

Councilor Sparatus interrupted. "You mean, Ambassador, that you had a chance to rehearse the lies you intended to use to blacken the reputation of one of this Council's best agents!"

Udina continued as if there had been no interruption. "I believe that this Council would benefit from hearing their accounts firsthand." He then turned and beckoned Shepard. _The most high ranking first this time, to give the best first impression_.

Shepard moved forward and began to give his account. The Council listened quietly for the majority of the tale, but when he got to the part where they found Nihlus's corpse, Valern spoke up. "The testimony of one traumatized dockworker is not ironclad proof, Commander."

"Ironclad?" Sparatus scoffed. "It isn't proof of any sort. The man may have seen another turian. He may have been struck on the head by an explosion or a collision during the massacre of his coworkers and begun to hallucinate. He may have murdered Nihlus himself and attempted to escape his guilt by cobbling together a convenient lie out of news reports of a famous Spectre's medal ceremonies: by his own admission, this dockworker was not a man of honor!"

Shepard stayed calm. "Honored Councilor, there is a world of difference between being a lazy worker and being a murderer, and I would hope that you have enough faith in the ability of one of your best agents to know that he could not be overcome by a single dockworker with no combat training." He paused, then continued. "Ordinarily, I would agree that the testimony of one eyewitness is not convincing proof. However, the state of Nihlus's body adds considerable weight to it. He was clearly shot in the back of the head execution-style, at a range close enough that his kinetic barriers would not activate. The profile of the wound matches that of a modified heavy pistol, and bears no resemblance to the weapons the geth were using. In addition, the man managed to give a reasonably accurate physical description of Saren," Shepard indicated the glowing image of Saren standing in the corner, which had to this point remained still and silent, "despite there being no evidence that he had ever seen him before. Lieutenant Alenko recorded the entire conversation if the Council wishes to hear it."

Sparatus remained obstinate. "I still see nothing but circumstantial evidence, and that is being generous."

Now Anderson stepped forward to stand beside Shepard. "Circumstantial, Councilor? Answer me this, where was Saren during these circumstances? Spectres report directly to the Council, if he was engaged elsewhere he would have told you!"

For the first time, the glowing image of Saren Arterius spoke. "Ah, Captain Anderson." His voice was a sibilant hiss. "I should have suspected as much. You always seem to be involved when human kind brings false charges against me." His translucent image turned to regard Shepard. "And this must be your protégé, Commander Shepard. The one given the mission to recover a priceless Prothean artifact and who managed to smash it into a thousand pieces instead. I must say I'm not impressed."

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "The mission to Eden Prime was top secret. I wasn't even informed about it until less than an hour before hand. How exactly did you learn about the beacon?"

"With Nihlus dead, access to his files passed to me. I learned of his proposed mission with you to recover the beacon."

"Stop lying!" Anderson said, his voice raised to the point where he was almost shouting. Shepard stared at him in amazement; the man was nearly shaking with rage. "Before we landed on Eden Prime, Nihlus told me he hadn't heard from you in years. You expect me to believe he trusted you enough to turn over all his documents in case of his death?"

The image of Saren leaned forward, mandibles lifted and angled in a turian snarl. "I don't care what you believe, _human._ Nihlus was a friend. Nihlus was a fellow Spectre. I don't expect you to understand what either of those things mean, _human_. Your species is arrogant, and it needs to learn its place. You aren't ready to join the Council. You aren't even ready to join the Spectres!"

Anderson, Udina, and Chase all made outraged noises and tried to speak, but it was Councilor Tevos, of all people, who made herself heard. "Petty insults do not help your case, Spectre Saren. And Commander Shepard's admission or lack thereof into the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance is not the purpose of this hearing." He could feel the surprise emanating from behind him, and a muffled gasp from Williams; he had never told anyone that he was being considered for the Spectres. Truth be told, with all that had happened since that briefing in the _Normandy_ 's conference room, he had nearly forgotten it himself.

"This hearing _has_ no purpose, Councilor! The humans are wasting your time, and mine!"

Councilor Tevos turned her head slowly to look at the image of Saren in the corner, and in profile Shepard could see real emotion for the first time break through her mask as she looked at the Spectre: contempt. Her voice was frigid. "Do not presume to instruct this Council on what is or is not a worthy use of its time, Saren Arterius." She turned back to face the front and briefly glanced at Valern, who silently nodded. "Ambassador, this Council does not find that you have presented sufficient evidence to convict Spectre Saren Arterius of the charges of treason and terrorism."

A stunned air pervaded the human delegation. Saren's image leaned back, oozing smug satisfaction. Councilor Sparatus looked much the same. "I'm glad to see justice was served."

Councilor Tevos looked at him again, disgust now clearly evident on her face, then glanced at Valern again. Once more, the salarian nodded. "However, this Council does find that the weight of evidence presented is sufficient to not dismiss said charges at this time." The expressions of Saren and Sparatus abruptly changed; Sparatus attempted to say something, but Tevos talked over him. "This hearing is adjourned for three days' time. Upon its resumption, any new _proof_ of Spectre Saren's guilt or innocence will be taken into due consideration." With that, she gathered up the hem of her dress and gracefully walked out of the door at the rear of the Council's platform. After a moment, Valern and a clearly seething Sparatus followed her, while Saren's image in the corner flickered out.

The humans looked at each other, still stunned, but now in a much different manner. Alenko spoke first. "Well. I guess we all heard the lady."


	4. Ashley I

_**1430 Hours AST, April 14, 2183**_

 _ **Human Embassy Suite, The Presidium**_

 _ **The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

"In all honesty, that went better than I expected," said Anderson. They had left the Council Tower, and made the short sky car drive back to the Human Embassy and Ambassador Udina's office. The ambassador himself was pacing back and forth in front of the open wall that looked out upon the spectacular view of the Presidium at the height of the day cycle.

"I would tend to agree." Udina was cradling his chin in one hand as he paced, obviously thinking hard. "I believe it would have gone worse, likely including the full dismissal of charges and Saren's subsequent protection against double jeopardy, had it not been for Tevos's intervention. She had obviously made arrangements with Valern ahead of time."

"I wasn't aware that she was that openly sympathetic to humanity."

"Ordinarily, she isn't." Udina stopped his pacing. "This is likely the result of an internal power play on the Council, likely aimed at cutting the turians down to size in some way or another. I am going to make every effort for a one-on-one session with Tevos sometime in the next few days; if she is going to use humanity as a pawn in her games, we deserve the essential courtesy of knowing what is going on."

 _Politics_. Ashley didn't much care what fine distinctions Captain Anderson drew between "diplomats" and "bureaucrats"; Udina was a government official who spent most of his waking hours in shady backrooms and drew his salary from taxpayer money, and that made him a politician in her book. _I appreciate that he's trying to look out for human interests, I do, but there has to be a middle ground between that and treating every alien as an enemy. Right?_ The way she saw it, the asari Councilor might've just been convinced by the evidence they'd laid out and wanted a little something extra to make it indisputable. Though that presented its own set of problems.

"Ambassador, Captain Anderson, it seems to me we have a more immediate problem," Commander Shepard said, echoing her thoughts. "We need to find some sort of concrete proof of Saren's guilt within the next three days, something beyond the evidence we already found on Eden Prime. I'm a soldier. I'm not a cop, and I'm certainly no lawyer. I have no idea where we need to start looking for this proof."

"Actually, Commander, I think Councilor Tevos might have given us a clue there," Lieutenant Alenko said. The LT raised his omnitool and tapped in a brief command, causing three windows full of text to appear above it. "Remember how she sent us all the findings of the CSec investigation into Saren, right at the beginning of the hearing?" Ashley nodded uncertainly. Her omnitool had received the files just like everyone else's, and she'd given them a brief look while the Commander and Captain Anderson were yelling at Saren and the turian Councilor, but she'd dismissed the files as soon as she'd seen the case lead's name: another turian. The CSec investigation obviously hadn't turned up anything worthwhile, either, or there wouldn't have been any need for them to present their own evidence. _And I know what I just said to myself about giving aliens a chance, but I think the turians have shown sufficient proof that they're not our friends at this point._ She would not have been remotely surprised to learn that the turian case lead had attempted to shelter Saren just as the turian Councilor (she hadn't bothered to learn his name) had.

"I do. I haven't had a chance to look over them myself yet, but I have them here on my omnitool. What about them caught your eye?" Commander Shepard called up his own copy of the CSec findings and began looking them over.

"For starters, Commander, they're incomplete."

"Incomplete? The investigation wasn't finished?"

"Precisely, Commander. I can't really say that I'm surprised, given how short a notice CSec must have had. They would have had to rush to assemble what little they could scrape up into a presentable package, in order to meet the deadline of the emergency session the Ambassador had called." The LT glanced apologetically at the ambassador in question. "No offense, sir. But in any case, the files include a written protest by the case lead, a turian named Garrus Vakarian, at being forced to call off the investigation prematurely. It doesn't say precisely why. It might've been simple professionalism, not wanting to leave a job half done, or-,"

"Or he might have thought he was on to something," Commander Shepard finished. "Excellent work, Lieutenant Alenko." _I hope so. Maybe I judged this turian too quickly._

Captain Anderson smiled. "Well, Shepard, it appears you spoke too soon. I'd advise you to get in contact with this officer as soon as possible: the sooner you help him wrap up his investigation, the better. Although I don't have any idea where you might find him."

"I'd like to say that I do," Udina frowned. "Unfortunately, though I recommend all human CSec officers, I lose track of them once they're in. I have no access to the CSec personnel database, and this Vakarian is a turian in any case. The only advice that I can give is to head to CSec's headquarters and ask for him at the front desk by name. As a major government institution, it's located on the Presidium, though the individual officer might be assigned anywhere in any one of the Wards."

Commander Shepard stood. "Then I guess I'd better get moving, while the Presidium is still in business hours. Anderson, are you going to be coming with me?"

The captain shook his head. "I've got a few matters I need to discuss with the ambassador, then I'll need to return to the Normandy. It's generally a bad idea to leave the ship stripped of both its captain and executive officer for long periods of time."

"I see." The commander thought a moment. "Then in that case, I'll want Alenko and Williams to come with me to CSec headquarters. Chase, you remain here with the captain and return with him to the Normandy." Chase began to argue, but Commander Shepard cut her off. "No buts, Corporal."

Captain Anderson laughed. "I don't need an escort, Commander."

"No sir, but you're getting one anyway." Commander Shepard beckoned for Ashley and Lieutenant Alenko to follow and walked towards the door of the office.

"Shepard." Commander Shepard paused and looked back at Captain Anderson, who now looked much more serious than he had just a few moments before. "Remember that Saren's guilt in attacking Eden Prime and killing Nihlus isn't the only thing the Council wants more evidence on. A simple two to one majority vote is all that's required to pass a motion on the Council, and that includes whether or not to accept a new Spectre. Handle yourself well in this investigation, and you may yet find yourself replacing Saren. Regardless of what Councilor Sparatus has to say about it."

Commander Shepard nodded tensely, then strode through the door, the LT on his heels. Ashley's mind was abuzz as she followed them. _A human Spectre. An actual human Spectre_. Spectres were the long arm of the Citadel Council, entrusted with enforcing its will in places and situations where an army or a fleet would be inappropriate or overkill, and simple police officers did not have the firepower or authority. They were allowed to bypass any law and regulation they wished in pursuit of their mission, up to and including those prohibiting murder, so long as the Council deemed the end worth the means. _Which is why we couldn't just call the cops on Saren._ The only Spectres were asari, salarians, or turians, and it had been that way ever since the organization was founded. It was not a coincidence. For a species to produce a member capable of being entrusted with the functionally unlimited power and authority of a Spectre was one of the final hurdles to clear before being considered worthy of a seat on the Council itself. Ashley shivered, despite the perfectly pleasant temperature. _As if the stakes weren't high enough. How did I get mixed up in this?_

She had been shocked when the asari Councilor had so casually mentioned Commander Shepard's Spectre candidacy. Mulling it over now, as the three of them walked along the lakefront of the Presidium, she realized that she really shouldn't have been. The Commander was the greatest hero humanity possessed. The Skyllian Blitz, where he'd led a force of less than a dozen police officers and sailors on shore leave in delaying the advance of thousands of batarian slavers until reinforcements arrived, was just the tip of the iceberg. At the age of 29, he'd already been awarded nearly every decoration the Systems Alliance possessed, including the Star of Terra. He'd led a battalion of peacekeepers during the rebellions on Anhur. Ashley had even heard rumors he'd been involved in the disaster on Akuze in 2177, the year following the Blitz, where the Alliance military encountered thresher maws for the first time. If he'd survived that, that was only further proof of his toughness. _Not to mention he looks damn good on those recruiting posters, with that chiseled physique and square jaw… well._ Her personal favorite was the one with the Commander's face superimposed on the image of a roaring lion, with "ALLIANCE" at the bottom. Simple, yet badass. _Of course_ he would be the first one the Council looked to for a human Spectre.

The headquarters of Citadel Security was about a kilometer and a half downspin from the Human Embassy building. Moving at a brisk pace, even accounting for the fact that they had to push their way through the midafternoon crowds of shoppers and sightseers, it took them only about half an hour to reach it. It took them a scant few minutes more to reach the front desk, and attract the attention of one of the receptionists. Unfortunately, that's when the trouble started.

"I'm sorry, sir, but Citadel Security simply does not make a policy of distributing the whereabouts of active or retired officers, for reasons of personal safety," the asari receptionist informed them. "It would be all too easy for gang members or other petty criminals to carry out reprisals if we did. I'm sure you understand."

"Ma'am, I am clearly not a gang member or a petty criminal. I and my companions are clearly standing here in the uniform of the Systems Alliance military. We were given access to Officer Vakarian's case file by Councilor Tevos, and are seeking him for purposes relating to his ongoing investigation." Commander Shepard was visibly struggling to maintain his composure. Ashley admired his relative success; in his place, she'd long since have lost hers. _Chalk up another reason he's the Spectre candidate and not me._

"Sir, the Systems Alliance is a signatory of the Citadel Conventions and is bound by its international treaties, but the Alliance has no authority in the internal affairs of Citadel governance, no more than does the Turian Hierarchy or Asari Republics. Council law alone rules here."

"Yes, but-,"

"You claim to have been given Officer Vakarian's name by Councilor Tevos. Do you have direct written authorization from the councilor to access his personnel files and current assignment?"

"No, but-,"

"Then I'm afraid I can't help you." The receptionist leaned to the side and beckoned to the next in line. "Next!"

The Commander walked back out into the center of the lobby and looked around, obviously trying to figure out their next move. Ashley and Lieutenant Alenko followed suit. The place was crowded with people: trying to speak with incarcerated friends or family, attempting to bring a complaint to the proper authorities, reporting a stolen hoverboard… Naturally, CSec officers were much in evidence as well, standing in pairs or small groups. One of the latter, in a corner, drew Ashley's attention. She tapped the Commander on the shoulder and pointed.

A group of six human and turian officers were clustered around one krogan. Even for a krogan, who as a rule were a foot taller, twice as wide, and four times as heavy as any other bipedal species, this individual was massive. Including the scarred red armor he wore, Ashley estimated his weight at more than half a ton. A set of vicious scars deformed the right side of his red head plate and continued down onto his face, though whatever wound had caused them had not damaged his red right eye… or perhaps it had and he had simply regenerated the eye. Krogan could do that. _Red armor, red head plate, red eyes… this guy's a walking danger sign._ Five of the six officers around the krogan were wearing combat armor and clutching assault rifles; they were not moving to subdue him, but their fingers were not straying far from their weapons triggers either. The krogan ignored them, bending low to stare into the face of the unarmed, senior officer.

"Multiple witnesses saw you making threats in Chora's Den and attempting to gain access to restricted areas there," said the officer. He was a human, and despite his show of bravado, was very obviously trying not to shit himself. Ashley could not blame him. Regardless of the assault rifles in the hands of his fellow officers, the krogan could pop his head off like a cork in seconds if he so desired. "I am issuing you an official warning. Should you venture onto the premises of Chora's Den again, there will be consequences."

The krogan snorted. "You should warn Fist: _I will kill him_."

The officer's eyes widened incredulously. "Do you _want_ me to arrest you?"

The krogan actually laughed at that, though the sound had no mirth in it. "I want you to _try_." He turned and walked away, still ignoring the assault rifles now pointing in his general direction.

The Commander walked up to the senior officer, who was visibly struggling to regain control of himself. Ashley pretended not to smell the brown odor emanating from the man's uniform trousers.

"Excuse me, sir. I was wondering if you, or one of your fellow officers," Commander Shepard nodded politely at the other five officers, particularly the turians, "could help me locate another one of your fellows that I'm having some trouble finding. His name is Garrus Vakarian, and-,"

"I'm sorry, sir, but-but this sounds more like a matter for our front desk to deal with."

"I've already spoken with them, and they-,"

"If the receptionists were unable to provide any help, I doubt I will be able to either." The senior officer had now regained some measure of his composure, and apparently his pomposity with it. "In any case, personnel files on active and retired officers are restricted due to…" Ashley sighed. _Well, this has turned out to be a waste of time._

"Sir," she said quietly, "I don't think we're going to have any luck here." Looking grim, the Commander nodded. As she had been standing at the back of their little group, she turned to lead the way out of CSec Headquarters…

And nearly slammed into the krogan, who had moved back toward them and the officers with a stealthiness terrifying in one so large. "You," he rumbled, ignoring her and gazing almost hungrily at Commander Shepard. "Did you say _Vakarian?_ "

The Commander nodded slowly. "I did. Do you know him?"

The krogan gave another of his mirthless laughs. "No. I know of him. He and I are looking for the same man, although he doesn't know it yet. I think we may be able to help each other…" He trailed off, looking at the Commander expectantly.

"Lieutenant Commander Mark Shepard, Systems Alliance Navy. Second Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko and Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Williams, Systems Alliance Marine Corps. How exactly do you believe you can help us?"

The krogan shook his massive head slowly. "Urdnot Wrex. I said we can help each other; I'm going to need something from you in return. No details here, not in front of these pyjaks," he nodded at the CSec officers still standing in the background. "For now, I know where Vakarian's investigation will eventually lead him. You'll get to the same place with me that you would with him, but you'll do it a lot faster." He took a step closer, looming over them. "These pyjaks confiscated my weapons when I was brought to CSec Headquarters, not that it would have stopped me from wrecking the place: I'll need to retrieve them. You're human military, you should have armor and weapons of your own: you'll want them. Meet me at Transport Station 723, Level 46, on Tayseri Ward in six hours. The three of you and no one else." Urdnot Wrex lifted his head and inspected the senior CSec officer. "And _you'll_ want to change your uniform." He turned, and left.

 _ **2120 Hours AST, April 14, 2183**_

 _ **Transport Station 723, Level 46, Tayseri Ward**_

 _ **The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

Ashley fidgeted uncomfortably, her bulky pink-and-white armor weighing on her shoulders and hips and drawing occasional stares from passerby. _The girl Marine in pink armor. Ugh, I feel like such a cliché every time I put this suit on. If I'd known I'd have to wear this I would never have gone through combat lifesaver school._ Though embarrassment from excessively feminine armor was the least of her concerns as she leaned against the wall of the transport station with Commander Shepard and Lieutenant Alenko, waiting for the krogan mercenary/bounty hunter who claimed to have a quicker way of getting the information they needed. No, the real concern she felt at the moment, other than irrationally wondering if Urdnot Wrex was ever going to show and if this was all some obscure krogan practical joke, was the collapsed Avenger assault rifle in its magnetic holster on her back. Ordinarily, the thing was her best friend. But gun control was strictly enforced on the Citadel: weapons in the hands of anyone other than CSec personnel and Spectres were utterly forbidden on the Presidium. In the Wards, civilians could not carry anything larger than a medium caliber handgun, and service personnel from the galaxy's various militaries could only carry and use larger weapons if on an officially sanctioned assignment from their superiors, as she'd learned when the LT had looked up the relevant laws before they left the ship. Up to this point, they could plausibly claim that they were. But if they cooperated with a krogan renegade in whatever bloody scheme he had undoubtedly cooked up… _The Commander isn't a Spectre yet._ They wouldn't be able to prove Saren's guilt in the attack on Eden Prime if they were themselves in a jail cell.

Despite this, she reluctantly agreed with the Commander's logic. They had gotten nowhere with their efforts to ascertain the whereabouts of Garrus Vakarian: the wall of bureaucratic regulations and red tape in their way had proven insurmountable in the short time they had available. If Urdnot Wrex really could lead them to information on Saren, it was worth the risk of pissing off CSec. Commander Shepard's eyes narrowed as they searched the flowing crowds moving through the transport station, and Ashley followed his gaze to see a very large krogan in red armor shoving his way through the crowd towards them.

"Good to see you and your underlings made it, Shepard. Wasn't sure if you were going to show." _We were here early, you overgrown turtle._ "Hope you three are ready for a walk; we'll be going a ways deeper into the foundations of the Ward. The 'seedy underbelly', as I've heard you humans like to call it."

"Hold it." The Commander raised a hand as Urdnot Wrex turned to lead them towards whatever destination he had in mind. "We are no longer in CSec HQ or anywhere else on the Presidium. Before we go anywhere with you, I'd like the full story on who you are, exactly what information you claim to be able to lead us to, and what you expect from us."

The krogan paused for a moment, obviously thinking, then shrugged. "Fair enough. It's not like we'll have time for the full story when we get where we're going." He tilted his head, peering at them from the undamaged left side of his face. "I'm a bounty hunter. One of the best in the galaxy, since I'm not in the mood for false modesty. I've been hired by the Shadow Broker to kill the proprietor of a bar down in the lower area of this Ward, a man called Fist." The Shadow Broker was the public name for the individual or group that ran the largest intel trading business in the galaxy. "Yesterday, Fist came into the possession of some information that directly links Saren to both Eden Prime _and_ the geth. Instead of passing it up to his superiors in the Broker network as he was obligated to do, Fist decided to offer it to Saren. Idiot. The Broker doesn't take betrayal lightly."

Ashley's mind raced. This information, whatever it was, was exactly what they needed. _Although I'm afraid to learn what we're going to have to do to get it._

The Commander looked at Lieutenant Alenko: both men looked excited. "You're saying this bartender still has this information? It does sound like exactly what we need."

Urdnot Wrex shook his head. "He's not the bartender, he's the owner of the place. Spends all his time shut up in the back, which is why I couldn't get to him the first time without a bloodbath. And the information isn't a _what_. It's a _who_."

 _A who?_

"What are you talking about?"

"While CSec was running their investigation, a quarian showed up here on the Citadel claiming to have proof of Saren's betrayal. Since quarians aren't allowed on the Presidium, what with their tendency to steal everything that isn't nailed down, she attempted to turn in her evidence at the CSec district office here on Tayseri Ward. She ran into the same kind of bureaucratic idiots that you did, mixed with a healthy dose of contempt for suit-rats. So she went to the Broker next, or tried to. I'm guessing Fist is keeping her prisoner in the back of his building. Either that, or he's pawned her off to some of Saren's other buddies. Find him, you find her."

The Commander looked as grim as he ever had on Eden Prime. "So what's your plan? Kick in the front door and massacre every member of this guy's security staff until he tells us where to find this quarian?"

"Only if he makes us. But Fist is an idiot, so he probably will." The krogan grinned evilly. _I knew it. I fucking knew it._ "And this is where your side of the trade comes in. I could've broken in there and completed my contract already if I wanted, Fist's guards are as pathetic as he is. But I'm already on thin ice with CSec. I could take one or two or twenty of those pyjaks if I wanted, but the trouble with killing cops is that when you kill enough of them you start having to deal with soldiers, and when you've killed enough of _them_ you start having to deal with orbital bombardment from dreadnoughts, and I just don't have time for that. But now you're here." That evil grin was still plastered on the face of Urdnot Wrex. "You're human military. Shoot a few thugs, and your ambassador will give you cover. It might cause a diplomatic incident, but he'll still do it. I want in on that immunity."

"What if he doesn't give it?" Commander Shepard said, remarkably calmly considering the topic of discussion. "What if he throws us under the bus, and we end up in a Citadel jail on charges of mass murder?"

"He won't. Not once you give him that quarian's evidence. But the longer we stand here talking, the more time Fist has to silence her permanently. I know you don't have a better plan or you'd never have shown up here in the first place. I've given you the details, now it's time we got moving." Urdnot Wrex turned and strode towards a staircase that leading down. Ashley and the two men looked at one another, then hastened to follow.

With a massive, 1200 pound armored krogan leading the way, they were relieved of the necessity of shoving their way through the never-ending masses of people, but Ashley still could not help but be overwhelmed at the sheer numbers and variety of the crowds. She had spent all her life in human space, first as a child following her dad around his various boring garrison postings, then as a Marine on her own boring garrison postings. She had seen the occasional alien, and she had been to a few fair sized cities, but never anything like this. Even the Presidium in its day cycle had been utterly tame in comparison.

Tayseri Ward, and its four sisters, hummed with life. Unlike the Presidium, which had a day/night cycle, the Wards never slept. Residents on the arms set their own schedules based on their personal needs, and right now, apparently most of them needed to be out and about. She saw representatives of every Citadel race: legions of turians, asari, and salarians, of course, but also ponderous elcor, huge gray quadrupeds that dwarfed even the krogan. Hanar, which resembled nothing so much as giant jellyfish, casually floated through the air. There were volus, encased in the environmental suits they needed to survive away from the high-pressure, ammonia-and-methane atmosphere of their homeworld. There were even representatives of races that were not officially part of the Citadel: krogan mostly, but there was the occasional quarian as well. _Though unfortunately not the one we need._ There were, of course, humans as well, freely mingling with the aliens as they moved in and out of the shops, bars, restaurants, and various other establishments that lined the avenues. News broadcasts, loud music, and advertisements of various kinds blared at them as they passed.

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" _Following the recent attack on its colony of Eden Prime, which has been confirmed to be the work of the mysterious geth, the Systems Alliance has levied charges of treason and terrorism against Spectre Saren Arterius. The Alliance claims Spectre Saren is in collusion with the geth and aided them in their assault on Eden Prime. A Council investigation of the charges is ongoing._ "

" _Tupari Sports Drinks: Brings Your Ancestors Back From The Grave!_ _A division of Elkoss Combine_ _._ "

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Urdnot Wrex turned off the busy street they had been following for the past twenty minutes and began to head down a side route that was much less densely packed, though by no means deserted, for which Ashley was duly grateful. There was only so much big city she could stand at once. She could tell the LT felt similarly; if she recalled correctly, it was his first time on the Citadel as well. The Commander looked unfazed, however. _Nerves of steel. Of course_.

Ashley saw a signpost indicating a doorway off to their left, marked "OBSERVATION AREA". They had still not gone far enough down into the bowels of the Ward that the view of the rest of the station would be blocked, though if Ashley had been reading the level markers correctly, they would be very soon. Feeling a sudden urge to appreciate the sight of the Citadel one last time before they all got arrested, she tapped Lieutenant Alenko on the shoulder and indicated the observation area. "Feel like a break for a moment, LT?" He looked surprised for a moment, then nodded and turned towards the door. The Commander, to Ashley's delight, followed without a word of protest, leaving behind a confused-looking krogan.

The view was worth it. Across the vast space, only partially obscured by the spires of buildings rising from Tayseri, they could see the glow of the other four wards, spider-webbed by traffic lanes and city lights. To their right they could make out the Presidium, backlit by Widow; to their left, silhouetted against the pink mists of the Serpent Nebula beyond the tips of the arms, the drifting ships of the Citadel Defense Fleet. They stood there for a moment, taking it all in from a better vantage than the small viewport on the _Normandy_ 's bridge.

The LT was the first to speak. "Big place."

"Yeah. It really is." She pursed her lips. "It really drives home how small humanity is by comparison. I mean, I don't think most aliens are actively out to get us, but I don't think they're looking out for our best interests either. We have to be careful we don't get swallowed up."

"That sounds awful pessimistic, Gunny. I'm sure if humanity just makes the effort, we'll be as accepted by the galactic community as any other species is."

"He's right, Williams." The Commander joined them, standing on Ashley's other side, just inches away. "Besides, I don't see that the various non-human species should have any reason to not like us. We have oceans, hamburgers, barbecue, beautiful women... Just like in the old movies. We should have everything they want."

"Just like in the old movies? Well, if you want me to get in one of those tinfoil mini-skirts and a pair of those thigh-high boots, I'm going to want dinner first…" _Oh my GOD, did I just say that out loud?!_ "… Sir!" She could feel heat flooding her face. Commander Shepard was staring at her with what looked like resignation on his face. To her left, Lieutenant Alenko was doubled over in a fit of silent laughter.

"That's quite all right, Williams," the Commander said after a moment. "I don't think I could imagine you in a dress anyways."

"If you humans are done admiring the scenery, we still have somewhere we need to be." Urdnot Wrex poked his head in the doorway, then was gone. Commander Shepard hurried after him, looking very eager to be somewhere else. _That makes two of us._ Ashley and Lieutenant Alenko followed, the LT now shaking with suppressed mirth. Tears were streaming down his face. She shot him a dirty look. _I'll get you back for this_. Suddenly the prospect of a firefight didn't seem so intimidating.

The crowds continued to thin as they descended deeper into the bowels of the Ward. By the time they reached a dingy gray alley with only one door in sight, they were quite alone. "Here we are," the krogan stated laconically. Ashley focused her attention on the lone doorway. *Chora's Den*, the neon sign above the entrance said. Flanking it were two larger-than-life neon depictions of asari, flickering between various seductive poses. _I'm starting to get the feeling that this isn't just a bar._

Lieutenant Alenko confirmed her suspicions a moment later. "I've been to a couple places like this on shore leave on Elysium and Terra Nova. The, uh, dancers were quite, uh, flexible. They were all human women though. Never gotten to see an asari perform, I've heard the ones in their Maiden stage are quite, uh, notorious for this sort of thing."

"Hey, LT. Put your tongue back in your mouth before you trip on it," Ashley said vindictively.

"Quiet, you two!" Commander Shepard hissed. They both shut up immediately. "Do you hear that?" Ashley frowned and listened. She didn't hear anything. Save for the sounds they themselves were making, the alleyway was eerily quiet. Then she realized that was the Commander's point. The heavy music and loud voices that should normally have been coming from a place like the nightclub in front of them were completely absent.

"Fist knows we're coming," Urdnot Wrex stated. The krogan looked back at them as he unslung his massive shotgun from its hardpoint on the small of his back. "They're probably going to start shooting as soon as we come in the door. All the better, it'll let your ambassador claim self-defense. I'll go in first. All their fire will be focused on the first thing they see, and a few hits from the peashooters they'll be packing won't bother me." The evil grin was back on his face. He turned and strode toward the door.

"No, wait-," Commander Shepard began, but Urdnot Wrex had already slammed the door open. An eruption of noise met their ears as the nightclub's security opened fire, and the krogan roared and disappeared inside. Commander Shepard swore and made to follow, but Ashley grabbed his shoulder.

"Sir, let me." He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. Of the three humans present, she was wearing the heaviest armor. She retrieved her helmet from where it had been riding on her belt and sealed it in place, then reached back over her shoulder for her assault rifle. _Well, this is it._ Ashley heard the familiar whir as the Avenger expanded into its operable state, and felt its comforting weight in her hands. She took a deep breath, then rushed through the entrance of Chora's Den after Urdnot Wrex.

Chaos greeted her eyes. In the fifteen seconds he'd been alone in the nightclub, the bounty hunter had already managed to blast two members of the security staff into giblets with his massive shotgun. Even as she watched, he picked up a third man with his off hand and snapped his neck with a sickening _crack_ , then whirled, dropping the now-lifeless body, and thrust the same arm forward. A man who had been perched atop the large raised platform near the center of the room, attempting to hide behind one of the poles normally used by dancers, flew screaming down off the platform and impacted the far wall. As he'd predicted, Urdnot Wrex had drawn most of the attention of the nightclub's defenders, but a few switched targets to the pink-and-white blur that now raced in the door. Part of Ashley's mind noted the shots chipping at her shield, even as the training hammered into her took over and sent her looking for the best available cover.

 _There_.

She dove into a booth four meters to the right of the doorway, undoubtedly used for private table dances in normal operation, then poked her head out and scanned for targets. Urdnot Wrex had gotten rid of one hostile on the central dancing platform, but if there were any more up there, they presented the greatest threat…

 _There._

A man peeked out from behind one of the poles on the platform, trying to get a bead on her or Urdnot Wrex. She dropped him with a short, precise burst, then instinctively flinched as rounds slapped into her shields. The bartender popped up from behind the bar, firing at her with a cheap, civilian grade pistol. She returned fire, watching dispassionately as her shots tore through the man's t-shirt and out his back. He hadn't even been wearing armor. Her eyes flicked up to the shield charge readout in the corner of her helmet's HUD. _85%, and they never recharged from the shots I took when taking cover. Whoever Fist is, he's either too dumb or too cheap to actually buy his goons real gear._ A blue glow lit the corner of her vision. A man yelled in fear as he was yanked into the air from behind the cover of another private booth by unseen forces, his arms windmilling frantically, his weapon forgotten. A blue ball flew in and smacked him, producing a loud explosion. Commander Shepard and the LT had made their own entrance. _Wait, am I the only person here who can't abuse the forces of gravity with their mind? Why am I just now noticing this?_ The biotic explosion had left only a couple of dazed survivors in her field of view. She dispatched them with a pair of precise shots each. The room fell quiet for a moment, then more gunfire erupted.

Ashley left her booth and quickly worked her way around the right side of the dancing platform as the Commander and the LT moved around the left. Her eyes moved back and forth, searching for the new hostiles…

 _There._

Three more men had entered the room from a back entrance. _Fist's private bodyguards, have to be._ They were at least wearing armor with personal shields, though it still looked like cheap second hand crap compared to her own heavy plate. They raised aftermarket rifles and opened fire on Urdnot Wrex. The krogan's shields were already severely damaged from being the continuous focus of the vast majority of the security staff's fire. Ashley heard the _pop_ as they went down, and rounds began impacting his armor. He roared again, lowered his head, raised his shotgun and charged his new assailants. He probably would have succeeded - krogan were too resilient to be brought down by a few shots from such poor quality weapons – but she beat him to it.

In one smooth motion, she retrieved a frag grenade from her belt, flicked the cover off the arming key, pressed it, and sidearmed it towards the three new hostiles, who were standing bunched up in a rough triangle formation, two forward, one back. _Amateurs._ The grenade sailed across the room and detonated at shoulder height in front of the right-most bodyguard. It killed him instantly, tearing through his weak shields, and tore the left arm and shoulder off of the man standing next to him. The one in the rear "only" lost his shields and got a face full of shrapnel; he dropped his weapon and doubled over, clutching his face. Ashley finished him with a single headshot from halfway across the nightclub floor, and grinned viciously behind her faceplate. _You can keep the fancy blue biotics, boys._

The four of them reassembled at the door the bodyguards had used to enter, then slowly moved through it, taking care to maintain as much spacing as possible between them in the back corridors of Chora's Den. As it turned out, it wasn't necessary. There were only three rooms in the rear area of the nightclub, and two of them were empty. One was storage, the other was apparently some kind of meeting room. Neither held a quarian. The third had a plaque on the door, reading "Office". Ashley and Urdnot Wrex stacked up on either side of the door, with the Commander and Lieutenant Alenko behind them. The krogan gave her a short nod; she stepped out in front of the cheap, outdated hinged wooden door and kicked it in.

She saw a pudgy man in red-and-black armor, obviously of much finer make than that of the men he had sent to fight and die defending him, lounging behind a desk in a faux-leather chair. She saw the look of disbelief and horror that spread across his face as he saw her and the rest of the squad coming through behind her: obviously he had somehow believed his goons could protect him. She saw him fumble for a button on the holographic keyboard of his computer, one that would likely cause turrets or traps or some kind to spring into being from somewhere in the room.

Ashley saw all this in the four seconds it took her to take three steps into the room and dive across Fist's desk, bowling him out of his chair and slamming him to the ground. He was a man and a thickset one at that, but her armor was sufficiently heavier than his to roughly equalize the weight factor, and she was much more physically fit. She felt his right arm scrabbling across her waist and upper thigh, obviously trying to reach something on his belt; she grabbed his wrist with her left hand and smashed it against the floor a few times as she pressed her armored right forearm into his throat, pinning his neck against the ground. That discouraged him. She held him that way for the few seconds more it took for the shadows of the rest of the squad to fall on the ground around them, before releasing him and getting up.

" _GET THE FUCK UP! HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD! TURN AROUND AND FACE THE WALL!"_ Commander Shepard screamed as Ashley bent to scoop up her rifle, which she'd dropped in her haste to subdue the man. Fist, trembling, complied. The Commander gave a short, sharp motion of his hand and Lieutenant Alenko moved forward and relieved him of his sidearm. "Now turn back around." The Commander's tone of voice was much more normal now, but there was still no mistaking the deadly authority in it. "We have a question for you."

"I'll tell you anything. Anything, please just let me live, I'll tell you anything you want to know, there's so much I can tell you, I work for the Shadow Broker, please just let me live."

"Shut up." Fist did. "I've only got one real question for you. _Where's the quarian?_ "

"She- she isn't here."

"I know that, dipshit," Commander Shepard snarled, showing real anger for the first time since Ashley had met him. "We checked every other room in this place before we came in here _. So. Where. Is. She?_ "

"She- she was never here." Fist's terror was making itself known in his rapid speech, the way his eyes kept rapidly moving back and forth between their weapons. "She was suspicious. Said she'd only deal with the Shadow Broker himself, and no one else."

"Face to face?" Urdnot Wrex, so full of fury when they'd faced the thugs in the front area of Chora's Den, seemed oddly emotionless now as he stared at Fist. "Impossible. I was hired through an agent. Everyone who works for him is."

Fist nodded rapidly. "No one meets the Broker. Ever. But, but she didn't know that. I used that. Told her I'd set up a meeting. Sent her away with a time and a place. Sent the time and place to Saren. When she gets there, it'll be his men waiting."

"When? Where?" The Commander's voice had now gone very quiet, and very soft.

"A back alley two levels further back up, two kilometers further toward the tip of the arm. In about fifteen minutes from now. The exact coordinates are on my console. I've told you everything you need to know, now just please let me-,"

"Live" probably would've been the next word out of his mouth, given his previous pleas, but they never found out for sure. Urdnot Wrex's shotgun erupted, with a noise so thunderous in the tiny office that not even her helmet's built in hearing protection could stop her ears from ringing, and Fist's chest evaporated in a red mist. What was left of him clattered to the floor in a heap, his armor having done nothing whatsoever to save him.

Ashley reacted instantly, pivoting in place and taking two steps back as she brought her rifle in line with the krogan's left eye. " _Drop the gun, krogan_!" _Bloodthirsty, uncontrollable bastard!_ The LT also moved to bring the krogan into his line of fire.

Urdnot Wrex did not seem to care. "The Shadow Broker paid me to kill him. I don't leave jobs half done." He flicked a piece of Fist off his armor. "You can tell your minions to stand down, Shepard. There's no reason for me to hurt you, especially considering you still have something I want."

"That isn't the point!" Despite seemingly being ready to execute Fist himself moments earlier, the Commander was still very angry. "You charged into Chora's Den without waiting for my order! You executed a defenseless man, without my order! I cannot and will not have you charging around doing whatever the hell you want whenever you want! From this moment you _will_ obey my orders, or so help me God I will tell Ambassador Udina to offer you up to CSec on a silver plate!"

The krogan stared at him for a moment, then gave a wide, genuine grin. "I like you, Shepard." He gave the corpse one brief glance, then eyed the door. "Now don't we all have somewhere else to be?"

Commander Shepard nodded, and just like that he was back to his more normal, ruthlessly cool and efficient self. "Alenko! Grab those coordinates off that console, upload them to mine and Williams's omnitools! You then have thirty seconds to grab anything else on that you can find relating to Saren! Williams, upload the coordinates from your omnitool to your helmet's HUD as soon as you get them, then _move!_ "

Ashley was no stranger to running. She had made countless forced marches during Basic Training, AIT, and Combat Lifesaver School, nearly all with a full pack of kit and weapon, many in partial or full armor, several of them five or even ten times longer than this. She was in excellent physical condition. But sprinting as fast as her legs could carry her, through winding alleys and up a few flights of stairs, clutching her Avenger in her arms, going around or through the occasional bystander, in a full suit of heavy plate, _with a sealed helmet_ , was something new. Before long, she was gasping. She could not stop, not even for a moment, not even to double check that they were taking the correct route to the glowing dot that marked the location of the ambush on her HUD. She had to have faith that they had not taken a wrong turn somewhere, that the few seconds it had taken Lieutenant Alenko to pull Fist's records of his dealings with Saren off his console would not mean the difference between life and death for the quarian, and the difference between exposing Saren and letting him get away.

As it was, they were almost too late.

As they came within thirty meters, the Commander, who had pulled ahead during their sprint, skidded to a halt and signaled for them to do likewise. Ahead, around a corner, they could hear voices.

"You're here. Do you have the data?" The voice of a turian.

"I don't think so." The voice of a teenage girl, with an accent noticeable even through the filters of a helmet. Sounding suspicious, and rightly so. "Where's the Broker? Where's Fist? No deal unless I see them."

A long pause. Then an explosion.

Commander Shepard burst around the corner, Ashley hard on his heels, Lieutenant Alenko and Urdnot Wrex hard on hers. As it had in Chora's Den and on Eden Prime, her training seemed to take over, analyzing threats and prioritizing the actions she needed to take.

A quarian, _the quarian_ , was huddled behind some crates to their right, clutching a shotgun in her hands. _Thank God she's still alive_. Ashley knew next to nothing about quarians, but she could see no visible injuries on this one.

Not far from her, a turian with garish facial tattoos was advancing on her cover, his weapon drawn. Further away, the stain of an explosion marked the spot where three salarians lay unmoving, though even as Ashley looked, one of them stirred and began to get up. The other two remained motionless. _Looks like she was the one to start the fight._ Two more salarians, another turian, and a krogan moved out of the shadows on the far side of the alley. _Saren must really want her dead._ Ashley and the other humans quickly moved into the cover of another stack of crates on the opposite side of the alley from the quarian.

The closest turian was the immediate threat, and a red indicator appeared over him on her helmet's HUD indicating that the Commander had designated him as such. Ashley leveled her Avenger and opened fire, as the Commander and Lieutenant Alenko did the same on either side of her. The turian almost instantly went down; he had been wearing normal civilian clothes, though Ashley suspected that had only been to help him blend in and lure the quarian into a false sense of security. The formerly hidden backup were wearing armor, and of a quality much better than the cheap stuff Fist's bodyguards had possessed. Only now, with the turian who had served as the lure suddenly dead, did they begin to react to the presence of the four new arrivals.

A new red indicator flicked on in her HUD, this time over the krogan, who had pulled out a shotgun similar in design to Urdnot Wrex's and began to advance towards them. He presented by far the greatest danger of the remaining hostiles. To her left, the LT thrust out his left arm in the direction of the enemy krogan, and she heard the pop as the overload shorted out his shields. She and Commander Shepard immediately began firing their assault rifles, to seemingly no effect except to anger the krogan, who lowered his head, bellowed in rage, and quickened his pace.

The Commander threw a biotic ball at the krogan, which impacted square on his chest and began to eat away at his armor.

He came on.

Ashley sprayed a long burst into the weakened area of the krogan's armor. Orange blood splattered over the ground.

He kept coming.

Lieutenant Alenko waved his omnitool and did something that caused the krogan to roar in agony, but he did not drop his shotgun, nor did he slow his pace.

As the krogan came within ten meters and Ashley began to feel the first twinges of fear, his feet abruptly left the ground with a surprised yell. Haloed in a blue glow, his momentum carried him forward, sailing over their heads, and she ducked to avoid getting kicked in the head by his flailing feet. They had somehow forgotten about Urdnot Wrex. Their own krogan pulped the enemy's head with a single blast from his own shotgun, and the alley fell silent.

Only now did Ashley realize that during the enemy krogan's charge, there had been no weapons firing in the alley apart from their own. The three salarians and one turian who had tried to take up positions to shoot at them had instead spent that time frantically fiddling with their weapons, the internal circuitry of which had apparently shorted out. _The LT didn't do that, he was too busy trying to help us with the krogan._ They realized the futility of their efforts and dropped their guns as the squad walked out into the alleyway.

"Thank you for helping me." The young voice they had heard earlier came from behind them. The quarian moved out from behind her crates and stowed her shotgun. She was short, perhaps 5'5", and moved hesitantly. Her voice, too, sounded more confused than anything. Nothing could be gained from her face; only the vague gleam of her silver eyes was visible from behind the nearly opaque faceplate of her enviro-suit. Ashley knew very little about quarians, but she did know the reason for that. The immune system of quarians was horribly atrophied; any exposure to an environment that was anything short of perfectly sterilized would usually lead to half a dozen horrible diseases for them. "I don't know you, though. Who are you? Why would you want to help me? Nobody's tried to help me since I got to this station." _Poor thing_.

"I'm Commander Shepard with the Systems Alliance Navy. These other two humans are part of my crew. This is Urdnot Wrex, a bounty hunter that promised to lead us to you. We're told you have evidence concerning Saren Arterius's attack on one of our colonies, evidence that you've been trying to get someone to notice?"

The quarian's whole demeanor changed, from confusion to joyous relief, and Ashley knew what the answer would be before the words left the young alien's mouth. _Thank God_.


	5. M Shepard II

_**0930 Hours AST, April 15, 2183**_

 _ **Human Embassy Suite, The Presidium**_

 _ **The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

It was all Shepard could do not to roll his eyes as the ambassador ranted and raved, settling for a small, very quiet sigh. All had, in the end, worked out very nicely. The diplomatic immunity gamble had worked, even for Wrex. The quarian (he still hadn't learned her name, and resolved to rectify that as soon as possible), had never done anything illegal in the first place, other than carry a shotgun, and that was mitigated by the fact of the clear and present threat to her life that had presented itself. All five of them had made it safely to the Human Embassy on the Presidium, where they had been greeted by a very angry Donnel Udina. So angry, as a matter of fact, that he had yet to inquire about the presence of the two aliens in the party, a fact that Shepard looked forward to enlightening him about.

Still, Shepard could not fairly blame the ambassador for being a little irritated. Shortly after they had succeeded in rescuing the quarian, they had been confronted by a swarm of CSec officers. He, Williams, Alenko, and Wrex had been disarmed and taken into custody (as had Saren's four surviving thugs; it turned out the turian and one of the salarians had outstanding warrants and the other two salarians had been accused by the quarian of attempted murder). The quarian had tagged along to the Tayseri Ward precinct office, both to file her statement against her attackers and to stay close to the only people that promised any sort of safety on the Citadel for her. After nearly ten hours of what Shepard could only imagine had been frantic diplomatic maneuvering on Udina's part, CSec had suddenly released them, with curt orders to go straight to their ambassador's office on the Presidium. They had not had their weapons returned, though; apparently those had been sent instead back to the _Normandy_. _So, again, I understand if he's a little cranky after essentially a full night of work, but does he have to be so_ loud?

"… firefights in the Wards, AND AN ALL OUT ASSAULT ON A NIGHTCLUB, WITH A MASSACRE OF ITS SECURITY STAFF AND OWNER?!" Udina all but screamed. " _Do you have any idea the damage you've caused, Shepard?_ The greatest hero of our species, engaging in wanton butchery in the heart of the galactic capital, _in full Alliance battle dress?_ Do you know how much political capital I have had to spend in the past ten hours to get you out of a holding cell, capital that I and Ambassador Goyle have spent more than two decades building? I gave you a mandate to cooperate with a CSec investigator to find Saren, and instead you make me bail you out from them, along with a krogan! And a quarian! I dearly do not wish to know how you found either of _them!_ "

"Well, now that you've brought it up, Ambassador," Shepard said, seizing on the golden opportunity that had presented itself to him, "the krogan came to us when we were stonewalled by CSec, and informed us that he knew a way to find irrefutable evidence connecting Saren to both the geth and the attack on Eden Prime. Our attack on Chora's Den and the shootout in the alleyway, regrettable though they were, were _necessary_ to our efforts to obtain that evidence. I might've told you all this at the beginning, Ambassador… if you hadn't jumped down my throat." Udina purpled.

"I see. And the quarian?" Anderson asked. He had been quickly recalled to the Presidium from the _Normandy_ upon the news of the arrest of his XO and two of his Marines.

"She has the evidence with her. At least, that's what I assume, I didn't have the chance to question her about it much before CSec showed up." _I only got far enough to know that she does have it somewhere._

"Hmph. This evidence had better be as irrefutable as you claim, Shepard. If it is not, there is no way we will achieve anything with the Council, certainly not with the disruption you have just caused." Udina still looked quite angry, but at least he was no longer shouting. He gestured at the quarian to step forward. "Very well, then, I suppose there's only one way to find out. You'd best start at the beginning, young Miss…?"

The quarian stepped forward timidly, almost trembling. _Has to be quite the culture shock, to go from being hunted by assassins in the seediest areas the Citadel has to offer to being questioned by the representative of a sovereign power in the serenity of the Presidium_. Under normal circumstances, she would never have seen any part of the Presidium, let alone an ambassador's office. Neither Shepard, nor any other human, had much experience with quarians, as there were so few of them in the galaxy and their Migrant Fleet had yet to pass through human space, but one only needed to look at the "Quarians Need Not Apply" signs on the fronts of dozens of businesses in the Wards to get an idea of how the more established species viewed them. There had even been a similar sign over the connecting elevator from Tayseri Ward to the Presidium: "No Krogan or Quarians Allowed Beyond This Point." It sickened Shepard that this racism had been institutionalized in that manner, but the fact remained that under normal circumstances, the quarian and Wrex would both have been forced to stop there. But these were not normal circumstances.

"Um, well, I- my name is Tali. My given name, I mean, my full name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. I had just set out to embark on my Pilgrimage when I saw-,"

"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, I know this is incredibly important," Alenko interrupted, "but can you explain for us all what this 'Pilgrimage' consists of? I don't think any of us have ever heard of it."

"Oh! It's, um, the rite of passage into adulthood for young quarians. We're sent out from our birth ship and out into the galaxy, with a small skiff and a few supplies, and we can't return until we have found something of value, something that strengthens the Fleet as a whole. Only then are we allowed to join the crew of a new ship." Tali's voice paused for a moment, then continued, stronger, gaining confidence. "Almost two days ago, I had stopped in an uninhabited system to discharge the core of my skiff on my way to Citadel space when I noticed a geth presence on one of the terrestrial planets in the system. I was excited. Since the geth drove us into exile, they have never ventured out of the Veil. Any information we can gather about them is priceless to the Fleet. If I could capture and disassemble one, I thought, and learn something new about them, I could go home then and there! So I-,"

"I'm sorry." Anderson interrupted her this time. "But Alliance Intelligence has been completely unable to recover anything from the memory cores of the geth that were destroyed on Eden Prime. Some kind of failsafe, they flash their cores when their systems go critical. Are you saying you managed to get something useful off of one anyway?"

"We quarians built the geth. Three hundred years ago, you could insert a worm of sorts into their systems remotely before you destroyed their platforms and use that to prevent the core wipe, and it turns out that still works today. I landed on this planet, tracked a patrol of geth, managed to separate one from the rest of them, and disabled it. I was able to recover the memory core mostly intact. I was hoping to recover useful intelligence, maybe information on geth defenses or how they've evolved over the last three hundred years. I thought I'd set a record for the shortest Pilgrimage ever. Instead, I found… _this_." Tali lifted her omnitool and entered a command into it, accessing a file.

A turian's voice, unmistakably Saren's, filled the room. "Eden Prime was a major victory!" _This is it, we have him._ "The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit." _Wait, to finding the what?_

Another voice issued from Tali's omnitool, a woman's voice, one Shepard did not recognize at all. "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers _._ " _I'd like to say I don't recognize that term at all either… but it feels… both right and wrong somehow. Like I should know it but I'd be happier if I didn't._

"Were you able to recover anything relating to that last term?" He asked carefully, trying to ignore the growing feeling of unease. "The Reapers?"

"Yes, actually. According to the files on the geth's memory core, the Reapers were a race of sentient machines responsible for the destruction of the Protheans fifty thousand years ago. The geth revere them as gods, apparently, and view Saren as the prophet for their return."

"So, we've found the lie he's using to control them," Udina said dismissively. _No, I don't think so, somehow._ "I don't recognize the voice that mentioned it either, though no doubt we'll identify who that woman was in due course. The important thing is, that is indisputably Saren's voice, admitting his involvement in the attack on Eden Prime!"

 _It is, unless…_ "Is this all you have?" Shepard asked Tali. "Just the audio file on your omnitool? You didn't keep the memory core itself?"

She took his meaning immediately. _Sharp kid_. "I did," she said, producing it from a pouch at her belt. "The audio file on my omnitool is really just a backup, but it's more convenient to access. The original is still present on the geth core, along with all the other files I managed to save. The only thing I did was make a copy, it hasn't been tampered with besides that and anyone who knows computer systems will be able to tell."

Shepard looked at Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina. "Councilor Sparatus won't be able to claim this was forged. Combine that with the data Alenko pulled off of Fist's computer files, showing Saren's arrangement of Tali's assassination, and the evidence we already assembled from Eden Prime… they can't ignore this." His voice became urgent. "Ambassador, Councilor Tevos said there would be another session in about two days to review any evidence that we might have found, but the Council needs to see this _now_. Is there a way to call an emergency session?"

Udina shook his head. "No individual save an actual Councilor has that power. I will try to get them to call a session immediately, of course, but given the layers of bureaucracy surrounding the Councilors, and the fact that there is already a session scheduled to deal with this matter, I do not expect any success."

 _ **1200 Hours AST, April 15, 2183**_

 _ **Council Tower, The Presidium**_

 _ **The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

This meeting, unlike the previous hearing almost a day previously, did not take place in the grand Council Chambers, but rather in a small conference room two floors below it. A long table of polished wood dominated the center. Councilors Sparatus, Tevos, and Valern occupied three chairs on one side of it, while Shepard, Anderson, Udina, Williams, Alenko, and Tali all sat on the other (there was no seat big enough for Wrex and he had been forced to wait in the outside hallway). Each of the Councilors had a personal monitor in front of them, across which the files lifted from Fist's computer were now scrolling.

"As you can see, Councilors, Saren arranged a targeted assassination of Miss Zorah, for fear that the information she carried would fatally compromise his efforts to escape justice for his attack on Eden Prime." Udina had been the most surprised of any of them when his request to Councilor Tevos's office for an emergency session had been answered within the hour, but it had not affected his pomposity one bit.

Sparatus slowly looked up from his console. "This evidence is indeed damning, Ambassador… or it would be, if you could provide proof that these files are not forged, and that this quarian's supposed incriminating, conclusive evidence is as decisive as you say it is. Can you do that?"

Shepard replied. "We can, Councilor." There was a holographic projector in the corner of the room, but Saren had not made an appearance like he had at the previous hearing. Sparatus had made some vague excuse when they had filed into the room about Saren likely being busy on a mission and unable to respond, but Shepard knew the truth. _He got word that his men had failed to kill Tali, knew the game was up, and cut all communications permanently_. If the Council hadn't figured that out yet, they would soon. "Your computer technicians should be able to verify that the files on your consoles have been altered in no way save for being copied and pasted. As for Tali's evidence, I think it's best you heard it from her."

The young quarian began to speak, clearly nervous about now having to present her tale to the three most powerful individuals in the galaxy, but managing to get the story out in a coherent fashion nonetheless. As she did so, Shepard watched the faces of the Councilors. There was anger and embarrassment on Sparatus's, which Shepard guessed came from being proved completely wrong about Saren's innocence less than a day after having stuck his neck out for the Spectre. Tevos wore the serene mask she usually did in public, but Shepard thought he could see a gleam of something in her eyes. Triumph? Valern he could gain nothing from. Salarians lacked the essentially human faces of asari, and he lacked the extensive experience dealing with them that he had with turians.

Tali finished with her tale, and played the recording. Now the Councilors' faces changed, or at least those of Sparatus and Tevos did; Valern remained unreadable. Sparatus no longer looked angry, but rather defeated and resigned. _Looks like he genuinely believed in Saren's innocence. I suppose that's a good thing._ Tevos kept her face still, but her eyes had widened in shock. _I was under the impression she was already suspicious of Saren. What changed?_

With the recording finished, Tali produced the original geth data core for the Councilors. A silence fell over the conference room.

At length, Sparatus spoke again. "It would appear that this new evidence of yours is, indeed, irrefutable. And I would also seem to have… greatly misjudged Saren." Every word seemed to drag itself from him with the utmost reluctance. "You have my word of honor as a turian that every effort will be made to bring him to justice for the crimes that he has committed."

Udina was not satisfied. "Based on the identity of the fugitive in question, Councilor, you'll have to forgive me if I do not place a very high value on turian honor at the moment." _I begin to understand Anderson's distinction between politicians and bureaucrats_. Sparatus's mandibles immediately began to twitch in fury, but Udina plowed on. "As the representative of the wronged party in these crimes, I demand to see _concrete_ and _immediate_ action being taken to defend against Saren and his geth. The first step should, in my opinion, be to allocate resources for a Citadel task force to defend our most exposed colonies in the Skyllian Verge and Attican Traverse."

Sparatus responded angrily. "It is humanity's responsibility, just as it is that of every other species, to defend its own colonies, especially those placed in dangerous areas of the galaxy. Your species already maintains the maximum amount of naval forces allowed it under the Treaty of Farixen; I advise that you use them."

"More pertinently to the original subject of this meeting," Valern interjected before the argument could escalate any further, "a fleet is not an ideal tool to track down one man. Saren is not the first Spectre to go rogue. Ordinarily, we would assign one of his fellows to track him and either capture or kill him. However due to an unfortunate turn of fate, all other current members of the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance are either currently on long range assignment and impossible to recall, or unsuitable to this particular job." Valern placed his long, frog-like hands flat on the surface of the table in front of him. "Thankfully, it would seem to me that a solution has presented itself that will address that issue."

Nearly everyone around the table grasped his meaning immediately. A look of undisguised glee spread across Udina's face, impotent rage across Sparatus's. Williams and Alenko both looked like they were about to explode. Anderson was quietly beaming with pride.

For his own part, Shepard simply felt resigned. _The first human Spectre_. Part of him had known this was coming. _As if being the Hero of the Blitz wasn't enough. If the Council wants someone for covert action, they'll need to look elsewhere after all; Saren will be able to see me coming miles off from the horde of paparazzi at my heels_. The galaxy had a known history of civilized species spanning hundreds of thousands of years, but in all that time he did not think anyone had ever had a week quite like his. Seven days ago he had been just another Special Forces operative, albeit one with an outsized public following. Since then, he had in unbelievably rapid succession become the executive officer of the most technologically advanced warship in the human fleet, become a Spectre candidate, been the recipient of an unwanted Prothean vision, shot up a nightclub on the Citadel, been arrested, and been released. Now this _. I don't see how my life could possibly get any weirder… no, God, please, forget I just thought that._ No one ever needed to know the answer.

Yet again, Sparatus recovered first. "No! It is too soon! Neither humanity nor Commander Shepard are ready for the responsibilities that come with membership in the Spectres!"

Finally, Tevos spoke. "Be reasonable, Tarren." Satisfaction and worry still battled in her eyes, but her voice remained as calmly serene as ever. "Were a turian or asari to boast Commander Shepard's qualifications, they would have long since become a Spectre. I believe he has proven more than enough in the past few days regarding his suitability for the post." She looked at him directly as she said the last few words, and he understood. _You knew CSec would stonewall me. You wanted to see how I'd go about finding evidence anyway_. "Inducting the Commander into the ranks of the Spectres will serve the interests of all parties involved." The asari Councilor raised an elegant blue hand and began ticking off her points on her fingers. "Saren Arterius will be brought to justice in the usual manner, without requiring the dispatch of any Council fleets or armies, nor indeed any Alliance ones beyond what is necessary to protect their own territory. The Systems Alliance will gain the prestige that comes with having one of its own enter into the ranks of the Spectres. Dispatching a human to deal with the matter keeps it a purely human affair, but inducting him into the ranks of the Spectres shows our endorsement of the Alliance's self-defense against the geth and our rejection of Saren's actions. Surely you can see this, Tarren?" Sparatus could offer no rebuttal. _She's totally outmaneuvered him, going back to the first hearing_. Shepard would be willing to bet that Valern had spoken first on her instructions as well, to make it clear that the two of them were still a united front. _Why, though? Why is she doing this? What does she gain by advancing me like this? By advancing humanity?_

With Sparatus unable to mount any objection, and Valern already on her side, Tevos looked back at Shepard. "It's decided, then. You will be sent the formal paperwork and written orders in due course, but for now, it's enough to say that we will be sending you into the Traverse to hunt down Saren Arterius. The precise manner in which you do so is up to you. As a Spectre, all interstellar nations signatory to the Citadel Conventions are obliged to grant you total immunity from prosecution for any actions you take in pursuit of your mission. You will answer solely to this Council. It is a trust Saren has abused. Be sure you do not make the same mistake." _Oh, no pressure then_. "Your formal induction into the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance will take place in the Council Chambers four hours from now. I believe that will provide sufficient time for notices to be distributed to the Citadel press corps and for comm buoy links to be set up with human space, yes?"

 _Oh, no. No, no, no, nope, oh hell no, no._ "Forgive me, Madame Councilor," Shepard asked with a tinge of desperation in his voice, "but I don't really see how a formal ceremony is necessary. The decision has been made and I've been given my orders."

It was Udina who answered. "Shepard, this moment is an achievement for humanity as a whole as much as it is a personal one for you. You are a symbol, and as such must be placed in the public eye and kept there."

Tevos nodded in agreement. "For your appointment as a Spectre to have the intended benefit to the Alliance and the Council, it must be made clear that you are being invested with our full confidence in view of all inhabitants of Citadel Space."

Sparatus's mandibles were still twitching in anger. _That line about "our full confidence" can't have improved his mood any._ "It seems to me that this meeting has accomplished all of its aims. We have successfully convicted Saren Arterius of treason, and inducted a human to take his place. If we are going to make arrangements for a public ceremony in a few hours, I believe we should adjourn immediately."

Tevos looked at him. "You are quite right. This meeting is adjourned." Sparatus and Valern both got up and made for the door, but Tevos stayed seated. Surprised, the two males looked back at her. The asari Councilor's mouth pursed. "There is a piece of information I must share with the Alliance delegation in private. Rest assured I will inform you as well as soon as possible." Sparatus and Valern looked at each other, but apparently neither could find any way to object. They turned and left, leaving Tevos alone on the opposite side of the table. _Now what is she playing at?_

The Councilor leaned forward, the worry that had been evident in her eyes earlier now fully returned. "Ambassador, am I right in believing that you have no clue as to the identity of the second voice on your geth recording?"

"You are," Udina said. "We did not believe it relevant to the matter of Saren's guilt, nor should it be of much consequence in tracking him down."

"You are wrong on both counts, Ambassador. The voice on your recording is that of Matriarch Benezia T'Soni. She is… not a close friend of mine, but a political acquaintance." The worry had spread from her eyes to the rest of her face; Tevos looked very troubled. "Asari internal politics is a free-wheeling and chaotic affair, with factions of hundreds of thousands or even millions of asari tending to follow the lead of an influential Matriarch in the online debates regarding policy. Benezia is one of these leaders. She had well over eight thousand acolytes sworn directly to her person when last I checked, a following in the e-democracy exponentially larger than that, and a vast personal fortune. If she has chosen to aid Saren in his treason, it is a significant boon for him, and it may cause a rift on Thessia."

Anderson spoke softly. "You fear that she will turn this massive following of hers against the Council?"

Tevos shook her head. "The Citadel Council was founded by the Asari Republics. No attempt to overthrow it or similar will ever find great purchase among my people. I am quite confident of that. The only asari that will follow her are those directly sworn to her, and perhaps not even all of them. No. What makes Benezia's treason so deeply disturbing is that it goes against every policy she has ever advocated. Of all the Matriarchs active on our internal political scene, none are more consistently in favor of peaceful coexistence with our fellow inhabitants of the galaxy, none are more in favor of restrictions on dreadnoughts and weapons of mass destruction, and none push harder for the diplomatic solution to every problem that faces us. There are hundreds of billions of asari throughout the galaxy, and I would have suspected any one of them of involvement in an unprovoked attack on a Citadel race before I suspected her." She stood. "I will forward your office what data I can gather on her at short notice, Ambassador Udina. You may wish to conduct research of your own on her as well. I will see you all in just under four hours' time; given the gravity and public nature of this event, Commander Shepard, you and your soldiers may wish to change out of your armor." With a swirl of skirts, she turned and left.

Udina stood as well and looked at them all. "I think you would be wise to take her at her word, Shepard. I believe I can still see dried gore on your armor from your adventure in the Wards. You, Alenko, and Williams will need to return to the _Normandy_ and change into more appropriate attire. Anderson, I will need you to return with me to my office. There are matters that we need to discuss. Miss Zorah, you are not a human and thus not under my jurisdiction, but given your indispensable part in today's events I believe you have earned the right to attend this ceremony as well, as a guest of the Alliance. Arrangements will need to be made for that, as well as for your immediate future now that Saren's assassins are no longer chasing you. I would therefore like you to return to my office with Anderson and I as well."

Shepard sighed, bowed to the inevitable, and rose. "Point taken, Ambassador. I should go." _In just a few hours it'll all be over_. He brought up his own omnitool and typed in a brief message. If billions of people were going to be watching him, he could at least make sure that the truly important one was among them. _I suppose I'll need a shower as well._

 _ **1600 Hours AST, April 15, 2183**_

 _ **Council Chambers, The Presidium**_

 _ **The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

As the elevator doors opened, Shepard was immediately blinded by dozens of flashing lights. Journalists of the modern era did not need cameramen as they had a century or two previously; some had VI guided recorder drones that floated around and followed them, while others simply used their omnitools to record video and stills. The Council Chambers saw major press coverage as a matter of routine, being the epicenter of galactic politics, and was thus equipped with a number of press galleries that gave the journalists an excellent view of affairs but prevented them from actually interfering. Nobody got in his face and bombarded him with questions as he climbed the three flights of stairs and strode towards the Petitioner's Stage, where Udina was waiting. _That will change soon enough_. Off to the side, Williams and Alenko stood next to Captain Anderson in the VIP section, each in informal service fatigues (Williams had found a better-fitting set this time) as opposed to his own starched dress blues. Tali and Wrex also stood there.

The Council was standing across the gap in their usual places; Valern on his right, Tevos in the center, and Sparatus on the left. Tevos gazed at him, taking no notice of the crowds in the press galleries. "We are gathered here to observe a momentous occasion," she began. "The man standing before us has proven himself to be a warrior of formidable skill, an individual of character and integrity, devoted to upholding the principles of the Citadel Conventions. Therefore, it has been decided to extend to him the privilege of membership in the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance." There was a collective gasp from the assembled press and dignitaries. _Did they not know what was actually about to happen?_ "Commander Mark John Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy, step forward."

The ceremony itself was mercifully short. Valern, Tevos, and Sparatus took turns declaiming about the extraordinary nature of the Spectres, the historic nature of the moment, and how he, Shepard, had earned this honor by his own skill. Sparatus betrayed no hint of the anger he had shown in the closed sessions, projecting a strong and confident demeanor in front of the cameras. For his own part, Shepard was not required to say much, save thanking the Council for the honor he was being accorded.

"Commander Shepard, you are the first human Spectre," Tevos finished. "This is a tremendous accomplishment for you, and for your entire species."

Udina stepped up beside him on the Petitioner's Stage and turned to face him. "In recognition of the achievement you have made today, Shepard, and in furtherance of the mission the Council has given you, I, Donnel Udina, in my capacity as representative of the Systems Alliance, am pleased to name you the Commanding Officer of the SSV _Normandy_ SR1." _What?!_ Had they been in a more private setting Shepard might have exploded in anger that Anderson had been unceremoniously forced out of a command he had so indisputably earned, that he was being given yet another responsibility he did not think himself ready or qualified for. But the eyes of the galaxy were upon him, so he gritted his teeth and thanked the ambassador as well.

Then the ceremony was over, and there was nothing for it but turn and descend from the Petitioner's Stage for the return to the Human Embassy. While the path to the elevator remained clear of any interference, a very different story awaited once the doors opened onto the Presidium. _I suppose it could only be postponed so long_.

A veritable horde of reporters surrounded the elevator's exit. The moment Shepard stepped out into the artificial sunlight, he was immediately swarmed.

 _"Commander Shepard, what is your reaction to the surprise announcement of your new Spectre status?"_

 _"Commander, is it true that the Council has assigned you to personally hunt down and kill Saren Arterius?"_

There were no CSec guards posted; Shepard was completely at the press's mercy. He saw no way through the crush of reporters save standing here for the next several hours answering their questions, or blasting through with his biotics. He supposed he would, as a Spectre, be able to get away with that now, but he still hesitated to inflict grievous bodily harm upon innocent civilians, especially when there was no danger to him or anyone else in the area…

 _"Will your new status as an agent of the Council conflict with your duty to Earth and humanity?"_

 _"Do you believe your appointment is merely an attempt by the Council to distract humanity from their refusal to grant us meaningful concessions?"_

 _"Is it true you and several other humans were involved in the butchery of a nightclub's staff and patrons on Tayseri Ward less than twenty four hours ago?"_

… on the other hand, calling these people "innocent civilians" was really stretching the term.

Shepard was almost at the point of summoning his biotics when a new voice cut through the clamor. "CSEC! MOVE ASIDE!" A single turian in a CSec uniform shoved his way through the reporters. "Commander Shepard? Officer Garrus Vakarian, Citadel Security Investigation Division." _Wait. Vakarian?_ "Apologies, Commander. There was supposed to be an escort here, but with such short notice for the induction ceremony, they couldn't find enough officers to spare. We have a lot of things to occupy us at the moment." The turian cast a contemptuous glance at the press. "Something I see the resident journalists here on this station can't say." He turned and led Shepard through the mass of people toward a waiting skycar.

Garrus Vakarian motioned Shepard into the passenger seat, then started the engine. As the skycar lifted off and accelerated into the lines of traffic soaring over the central reservoir of the Presidium, he glanced at Shepard. "You were going to the Human Embassy, correct?"

"Yes." A pause. "You'll forgive me, but I find it hard to believe that with what, two hundred thousand officers on this station, CSec couldn't spare three or four to escort me two kilometers along the ring."

"They could have. If they wanted to. Which they didn't. I'm sorry for lying, Commander. I'm here on my own account."

"I see." Another pause. "You were the officer in charge of CSec's investigation into Saren."

Garrus's mandibles clenched hard directly inward without raising or lowering. A human might have spat on the floor of the car in disgust. "If that's what you want to call it. I was denied access to the reports on all of Saren's activities within the past year until I'd filled out a security clearance override form for every single month that I was requesting information on. That quarian that gave you the information on Saren- Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, correct?- she originally contacted our Tayseri Ward precinct office with her evidence. I normally work out of Kithoi Ward. By the time Tayseri bothered to contact my immediate superiors to tell them they might have something relevant to my investigation, and I'd managed to get permission to move across arms to interrogate her, she had long since vanished into the city. I've heard how you found her. It would have taken me at least another day to so much as obtain a search warrant for Chora's Den, if I knew to go there at all. Doing things by the book, the way I was supposed to, would have ended up with an innocent young woman dead and Saren escaping guilt-free. It's not the first time crap like that's happened. But it's going to be the last."

Based on his own brief experience with Citadel Security's layers of bureaucracy, and his much more extensive experience with various government agencies within the Alliance, Shepard could easily believe the turian's account of how his investigation had gone. But his last words… "You quit your job?"

"Technically, I shouldn't even be wearing the uniform anymore, but I suppose my resignation will take another 48 hours to put into the proper filing cabinet."

"Why? I can understand being frustrated by that ocean of red tape, but CSec is a hard job to land, and from what I understand a well-paying one. Did you have something else in mind?"

"Well, Commander, that's actually going to depend on you. The reason I came to intercept you coming out of the Council Chambers as opposed to, say, buying passage to Palaven is that I know you're going after Saren. It wasn't specifically stated at your induction, but I can put the pieces together. And I want to come along." They had reached the Embassy Building. Garrus set the skycar down on the landing pad and got out, but made no move to enter the building, simply standing next to the car. Shepard did likewise, staring at the turian. _How many surprises can one twenty-four hour period hold?_

"You want to come with me? You want to sign on as crew aboard a human military vessel while we go chasing after a member of your own species?"

"Pretty much. You may be the first human Spectre, but you aren't the first Spectre, not even the first Spectre to be inducted straight out of their species' military. You and your ship will be placed on detached duty under the Council, and you'll be allowed to bring aboard anyone you think can aid in your mission. Part of your freedom to act, and actually accomplish things. As for Saren…" Garrus's mandibles were quivering with rage, easily as much as Councilor Sparatus had ever shown in defense of the rogue Spectre. "His brother commanded our ground forces that invaded your world of Shanxi twenty-six years ago, did you know? My mother was badly injured in the fighting under Desolas Arterius's command, and she's never been the same since, along with the tens of thousands of turians and humans who either died themselves or lost family there. All for a lie, for Desolas's personal glory. It's taken more than two decades for it to come out officially, but anyone with eyes to see saw Saren to be just the same as his brother long ago. He became one of the Council's top agents in the first place by killing anything between himself and his objective, including hundreds of innocents over the years. Now he's allied with synthetics and is burning planets. The man is a traitor to the Council, a traitor to the Hierarchy, and a disgrace to my people!"

Shepard raised an eyebrow, impressed in spite of himself. _He certainly sounds sincere. But still…_ "I'm not sure how best to put this," he said carefully, "but chasing Saren down is likely to involve some fairly heavy fighting at points. I don't know if a policeman is suited for that, regardless of the strength of your motivation."

"Every turian goes through mandatory military service. I graduated Basic Training at the top of my class and did five years in a Shock Phalanx. The only formation in the Hierarchy military more elite is Blackwatch, the equivalent of you humans' ICI program. I was actually in the early stages of Blackwatch selection when I quit to go into CSec instead. Getting used to the way you humans run things may take a bit, but I can handle myself."

 _Well okay then_. "Many of the human crew may not take kindly to the presence of a turian aboard."

"I'm sure you have them disciplined enough to not murder me in my sleep. I can handle any unkind comments."

"We don't have turian armor or kit."

"I still have my own personal set, and you can requisition some more from the Spectre Office if you feel the need. They stock plenty of gear for the Council races."

"We don't stock dextro rations."

"I have enough savings in my bank account left that I can buy my own. Especially if you're providing room and board."

Shepard couldn't help it; he broke into a grin. _It seems he came prepared. If this is how he's going to be from here on out, he may be useful after all._ "Have it your way then. I'm still familiarizing myself with much of the _Normandy_ 's layout, but I'm sure we'll find somewhere to put you." He held out his hand, and Garrus Vakarian shook it. "Now then, since you're officially part of the crew, I suppose you'd best tag along with me to see my ambassador. He had some final things to discuss with me." _And I have a few to discuss with him._

The two of them made their way into the building, through the lobby, up two flights of stairs, down the hallway, past the doors leading to the suites of the volus and elcor… _Well, here we go_. Shepard pressed the key for the door, and it slid open before him.

Everyone else was already there. Udina was seated behind his desk. Captain Anderson, Alenko, and Tali were seated in front of it, Alenko and Tali leaning together in hushed but excited conversation. Williams was standing at the railing, looking out over the Presidium. Wrex stood in a corner, watching the door. _What's he still doing here? I recall that Udina said something about helping Tali make arrangements, but a krogan battlemaster should be perfectly fine on his own._

Everyone's heads turned as the door opened and Shepard strode in with Garrus in tow. Anderson stood and moved to greet him.

"I imagine you're wondering about Udina's decision to give you the _Normandy_ , Shepard." _He knows me too well_.

"I absolutely am. Sir, I'm still trying to get adjusted to being the executive officer. My command experience is solely limited to infantry warfare. I have none of the qualifications normally required of the commanding officer of a warship. A good officer knows his limits and I feel obliged to inform you that this is mine. Should we be forced to engage in naval combat, I do not believe I will be able to make effective command decisions and more than fifty lives will be jeopardized as a result." _I can't have that many people under me again. Not after Akuze_. "In addition, this is your ship, a command that you have earned and I have no right to take it away from you when you've barely had any time with it. With all due respect, sir, I do not believe that Ambassador Udina has thought this decision through."

"He made that decision on my recommendation, Shepard." _Of course he did. The galaxy seems to have lost its marbles some time ago. What next?_ "Much of what you said is true. As general practice, the Alliance Navy prefers its officers to have spent significant time in fleet postings aboard various classes of ships before giving them a command. But the simple fact is that in order to accomplish the mission the Council has given you, _you need a ship_. You cannot go riding freighters around to random planets and hope to catch Saren. This is necessary, whether you're ready or not." Anderson smiled. "And I think you're selling yourself short, Shepard. In the brief period you've had as my XO, you've already filled the duties of the position as well as any number of fleet officers I've seen over the years. You're a born leader. Just do what comes naturally, and trust the abilities of those around you."

"Yes, sir, but surely another ship might have sufficed, one that would not require you to give up your command?"

"Don't be absurd," spoke Udina from behind his desk. "The _Normandy_ is the only Alliance warship currently at the Citadel. Giving you any other ship would require sending you back to Arcturus. Not to mention all the paperwork that would ensue. You are already the executive officer of the _Normandy_. Assuming command of her requires nothing more than Anderson resigning it."

"Not to mention the fact that the _Normandy_ is the only stealth warship in the Alliance Navy's inventory. She is perfectly designed for long range reconnaissance and infiltration, the exact kind of missions you'll be running. She's fast, and has enough armament to get you out of a quick scrape." Anderson's smile now had a sad tinge to it. "Honestly, she's the perfect ship for you. It's like it was meant to be."

Shepard gave up, on that matter at least. "Very well then, sir. Did the ambassador have other matters he wished to discuss with me before I assume command of my ship and begin my search for Saren? Which I might add I have no leads on?"

"Indeed I do," Udina said, still behind his desk. "First, though, would you mind introducing us to the turian?" Shepard had not forgotten Garrus's presence, but he had not had the chance to make introductions due to his immediate discussion with Anderson. He corrected that now. "I see. Well then, Shepard, if you're already bringing aliens into the _Normandy_ 's crew, then you should be perfectly comfortable with what I am about to propose to you." _He can't mean…_ "While you were changing into your formal attire for the ceremony, I had a discussion with Miss Zorah about her plans for the immediate future. She put forth a convincing case, and I have come to agree, that her skills would be quite useful to you in your forthcoming hunt for Saren."

A former member of turian special forces was one thing, but this was quite another. "Why did you say you'd left the Migrant Fleet in the first place?" He asked Tali directly. The quarian had gotten up out of her seat and moved into the center of the room.

"Um, for my Pilgrimage. It's-,"

"Your rite of passage into adulthood. I remember. You're still legally a minor." Shepard looked at Udina. "You want me to bring a child aboard a military vessel and employ her as a member of the crew?!"

"I'm nineteen!" Judging by her voice, that had deeply offended Tali. "You've already seen me in action, you know what I can do!"

"I know that frying the weapons of a few thugs in the alley is different from potentially fighting on the front lines of a war. NO."

"Every quarian has to receive at least rudimentary paramilitary training before they start on their Pilgrimage. My father insisted that I undergo Migrant Fleet Marine basic training before he'd even consider letting me go. And I can help aboard your ship! I'm really good with engines, I know the best way to increase the efficiency of an eezo core's magnetic bottling mechanism and I could swap out the thermal exchange ducts aboard the _Rayya_ faster than the actual engineers could when I was ten! Please?"

"I'd be happy to share my dextro rations with her," Garrus offered helpfully from behind him. Shepard glared at him for a moment, then turned back to the young quarian.

"A few weeks of training and being handy with engines isn't enough to prepare you for this. I'm sorry, but-,"

"Shepard." Anderson sounded almost… disappointed. "It's your ship now, but I think you're making a mistake here. Quarians are widely respected for their technical skills, even by those who hate them. An individual who stands out even among them as an engineer is going to be an asset. And remember how she got that evidence for us in the first place. You're going to be seeing a lot of geth, Shepard. Someone who's familiar with them is absolutely vital."

Shepard ground his teeth and stared hard at Tali. "You will report to the Engineering Department immediately on your arrival to the ship. You will follow the orders of the Chief Engineer immediately and without question. Should you come with me into combat against geth, you will do the same. Do you understand?" The quarian nodded eagerly.

"I can't fix your engines, but I want to come anyway." The deep bass rumble of Wrex's voice filled the room from his corner. The krogan grinned toothily at him. "Unless you want my resume too, Shepard _." I suppose I knew this was coming_.

"No, I don't suppose there's any room to doubt your qualifications." _I have a much easier time figuring out how to use a krogan battlemaster than a teenage quarian or disillusioned policeman._ "Just so long as you remember who's in charge." Wrex's grin grew wider.

"Now, Ambassador, if you've finished recruiting for me, do you have any useful information regarding Saren or Benezia? I seem to recall that you and Anderson were going to do some digging on them as well."

Udina had still not moved from behind his desk. "There is no relevant information on the whereabouts of Saren Arterius or his geth armada at the moment. All of his forces vanished from the Utopia System long before Alliance reinforcements arrived, and there is no word on where they may have gone since. Should this change, I or Arcturus Command will of course inform you."

"The only thing I can add to that is that instead of looking for Saren directly, you may wish to consider looking for his goal, this 'Conduit'," Anderson said. "Beat him to that, whatever it is, and you've won."

"There is no relevant information on Matriarch Benezia either. It would appear that she has not been seen in public in asari space for at least a year and a half, which begs the question of why her absence is just now being remarked upon if she is such an important figure. Regardless, we do not know where she has gone. But there is someone who might. She has a daughter, a researcher who specializes in Prothean history and culture, and as it so happens she is currently in human territory."

"The records for the colony of Therum in the Artemis Tau cluster show that she applied for, and received, permission to mount an archaeological dig on what she suspected were Prothean ruins on the planet two months ago," Anderson explained. "To our knowledge she is still there. She may know something about the plans of her mother and Saren. Even if she does not, she is an expert in the Protheans, and may be able to help you understand the vision the beacon on Eden Prime gave you, and why Saren wanted it."

"I've forwarded you her dossier. Therum's system is several days away from the Artemis Tau cluster's relay, so I would advise you leave as soon as possible." Only now did Udina stand. "Her name is Liara, incidentally. Doctor Liara T'Soni."


	6. H Shepard I

_**1545 Hours AST, April 15, 2183**_

 _ **Starboard Corridor, Deck Two, SSV Kilimanjaro**_

 _ **High Orbit of Eden Prime, Utopia System, Exodus Cluster**_

Captain Hannah Shepard exited the elevator and turned left towards the wardroom, balancing her tray in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. She grimaced at the burnt smell wafting from the latter. _Centuries have passed. The Navy has moved from sea to space, its ships are bigger and more technologically advanced with every year that passes, its weapons more deadly, its engines more powerful. Yet it still hasn't figured out how to make a good cup of coffee._ She'd drink it anyway, though. She'd only come off shift forty-five minutes previously, after having been working nearly constantly since the _Kilimanjaro_ and its accompanying fleet had entered the Utopia system. She needed the caffeine.

Normally, she'd have eaten her dinner in the mess hall. As executive officer, she retained the right to eat either in her own personal quarters or in the dreadnought's expansive wardroom, the door of which she now shouldered open, careful to maintain the balance of her food and drink. As a rule, however, Hannah preferred to take her meals amongst the enlisted personnel. There was something about the loud, bustling atmosphere of the large cafeteria that she enjoyed, and made it easier for her to relax. More importantly, the mess hall allowed her to project an appearance of availability to the crew: to show them that the senior officers of the ship actually moved amongst them and didn't just stay sealed in the bridge and other areas inaccessible to mere mortals all the time. Yet for all these advantages, the mess hall lacked something that she desperately needed at the moment and that the wardroom had: a vidscreen.

There were already a group of junior officers clustered around the thing, watching a football game: young ensigns she vaguely recognized as members of the Signals and Gunnery departments. _The downside of serving aboard a capital ship. The accommodations are much nicer, but the crew is so large you can never really connect with them no matter how you try_. Hannah put her food and coffee down on the far end of the massive oaken table that dominated the wardroom, then walked over to them.

The ensigns were much too absorbed in the game (Packers versus Seahawks, 17-10, with 6:43 left to go in the fourth quarter, she noted out of the corner of her eye) to pay any attention to her as she moved up behind them.

"Shane, man, you've gotta have more faith in your team! You're only down by a touchdown, there's plenty of time left on the clock to get into the end zone," one of them was saying.

"Yes, Ryan, there's plenty of time for a good offense to get down the field and score. But we do not have a good offense. We don't even have a meh offense. Our offense has yet to cross the fifty in this game. Our only scores have come on a punt return and a field goal when you fumbled the ball on your own twenty. This is OVER," came the response, to a chorus of groans from the other young officers present. Apparently Shane was well known for this kind of pessimism.

"I can recall at least three other occasions off the top of my head where-," the other young officer, Ryan, began, then broke off as she tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up with an expression of mild annoyance on his face, which was quickly replaced with horror as he saw the rank insignia on Hannah's shoulders. _Better he get that look than not be impressed at all, I suppose._ She extended her hand wordlessly for the remote he was holding. _Another odd anachronism. Omnitools can do so many things, but we still need physical remotes for TVs._

"Ma'am, you see- there's only a few minutes left in the game, it'll be over soon, please-,"

"Dude, are you insane? That's the XO! Just give her the remote, we can find out what happened later!" one of the other ensigns hissed.

"We already _know_ what's going to happen," Shane added mournfully. Reluctantly, Ryan handed her the remote. She raised it, and flipped through the channel guide until she found the Alliance News Network. _Either that or Westerlund, and I am not watching them so long as Al-Jilani is on payroll_. She had no intention of using an alien broadcaster either. Not for this.

The email had appeared in her inbox around 1230, and it had been nearly all Hannah could think about in the hours since. It had been short and to the point, so characteristic of Mark.

 _From: shepardmj5789 mailbox .san. mil_

 _To: shepardhl9251 mailbox .san. mil_

 _Mom,_

 _I'm on the Citadel. Just got finished meeting with the Council. They have decided to appoint me the first human Spectre. Insisting on a big formal ceremony at 1600 AST. Should be carried on all news channels. I know you'll want to watch: hope you can get off duty in time._

 _Love,_

 _Me_

She smiled wryly at the memory as she returned to her seat and began to eat, keeping an eye on the vidscreen. She'd never understood her son's hatred of his given name. _It's a perfectly normal name. What the heck is wrong with Mark?_ What she did understand, however, was his hatred of the press.

The screen was bisected vertically. The left half showed a man who looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, standing in a gallery overlooking a vast, grand hall. _Anton Graudenz, Council Chambers, The Citadel_ , read the script at the bottom. The right showed an attractive Asian woman in her mid thirties: _Sarah Ling, ANN Headquarters, Adelaide_.

"… so there still has been no update on why the Citadel Council has called this emergency public session?" Ling asked.

"Actually, Sarah, within the past half hour they have. I've been told, unofficially of course, that the Council has blamed Saren Arterius for leading the attack on Eden Prime and expelled him from the ranks of the Spectres, and that this session has been called to both officially announce that as well as the actions they are going to take to bring him to justice." An excited murmur ran through the junior officers still clustered around the vidscreen, no doubt at the prospect of finally having someone to blame for the devastation on Eden Prime. Until now, neither they nor Hannah had heard of this "Saren Arterius". _Actually, though, now that I think about it, wasn't he at Shanxi all those years ago?_ If he was a Spectre, it would explain why his name wasn't more commonly known- the Council usually sent those agents on covert operations. _And if a Spectre goes rogue, they send another one to track him down. Mark said he was going to be made a Spectre…_ She took a sip of her "coffee", trying not to wince as the black sludge oozed down her throat. _Even worse than usual. Does one of the cooks have a personal grudge against me?_

The vidscreen now was showing only the grand hall, zoomed in on the figures of a turian, an asari, and a salarian behind a podium. _The Council_. Opposite them stood two humans, one in full Alliance Navy dress blues, the other in a business suit. Hannah instantly recognized the one in uniform as her son. She didn't know the other one, but guessed him to be humanity's ambassador.

The asari Councilor began to speak. "We are gathered here to observe a momentous occasion," she began. "The man standing before us has proven himself to be a warrior of formidable skill, an individual of character and integrity, devoted to upholding the principles of the Citadel Conventions." _All true. That doesn't mean Mark will like hearing it. At all_. "Therefore, it has been decided to extend to him the privilege of membership in the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. Commander Mark John Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy, step forward. "

She could hear the uproar, both from the screen and from the young ensigns. A couple heads turned to look at her, understanding no doubt beginning to dawn on them as to why she'd insisted on changing the channel. The name "Shepard" and its variants were common enough that most people never made the connection between Hannah and her famous son. She finished her meal, laid the tray and fork aside, and concentrated fully on the newsfeed.

The Councilors were speaking in turns now, extolling the achievement that Mark had just made.

"Spectres are not trained, but chosen. Individuals forged in the fires of service and battle, whose actions elevate them above the common rank and file."

"Spectres are an ideal and a symbol. They are the embodiment of courage, of justice, of determination and self-reliance. They are the long arm and strong left hand of the Council, the greatest instruments of our will."

"Spectres bear a great burden. They are the guardians of galactic peace and order, both the first and last lines of defense of civilization itself. The safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold."

With every word the Citadel Council spoke, Hannah watched her son grow more and more uncomfortable through the vidscreen. Oh, the untrained eye wouldn't have been able to tell anything was wrong: his military bearing remained perfect, his face as still as stone, his posture of parade rest straight out of the Navy drill manual. But as the camera zoomed in on the first human Spectre, she could see the minute signs she'd become so familiar with in his childhood. Mark's shoulders were tensed, his ears red. _He already is one of the most popular members of the military. Now he's being elevated again, this time in front of billions of human and alien viewers. No doubt he thinks he doesn't deserve any of it._ He'd said as much to her on what seemed like every occasion they'd talked in the last seven years, and nothing she ever said in reply could convince him otherwise.

The Council had finished speaking, and now the other human on the platform, the ambassador stepped up. "In recognition of the achievement you have made today, Shepard, and in furtherance of the mission the Council has given you, I, Donnel Udina, in my capacity as representative of the Systems Alliance, am pleased to name you the Commanding Officer of the SSV Normandy SR1." For an instant, Hannah saw shock and horror flicker across her son's face before it returned to the emotionless mask he'd been maintaining. She audibly groaned. _A galactic agent with functionally unlimited power, and now command of his own ship. This is like some kind of ultimate nightmare for him._ She did not doubt he would do well at the duties of either position. Mark had always excelled at whatever he'd put his mind to throughout his life.

No, what worried her was his mental health. Her son had never been one to make many friends as a child. He'd been top of every class, a star athlete, and fairly handsome-things that would normally translate into being the most popular kid in school. Mark had had hangers on, people who gravitated to him in an attempt to poach some of his glory, but no one he was actually close with. It had continued when he got into the military. He led by example, a ruthlessly efficient warrior on the field and a firm but fair leader off of it. Everyone under him respected his ability, and were willing to trust him with their lives, but he counted no real friends among his brother officers. In a tight-knit community such as Naval Special Warfare, it was particularly noticeable.

It wore on him, she knew. Every success, every accolade piled on him only created more pressure in his mind, pressure to bring every last individual under his command safely through and see the objective fully completed. The pressure had increased to colossal levels following Elysium, where he had first become a household name among the general population of the Alliance. _Then came Akuze_. Every fear her son carried about his own inadequacy, about lives riding on his decisions, had been realized on that godforsaken rock. Weight like that wasn't meant to be carried alone, but Hannah knew he had never truly confided in anyone except her, and possibly David Anderson. _And I can't be there for him all the time, no matter how much I wish it were otherwise._

On the screen, the Council Chambers were emptying, and the ANN reporters were excitedly debating the meaning of what had just transpired, as were the young ensigns in the wardroom. In both cases, the dominant emotions were wholly positive, anticipation and joy foremost among them. Hannah did not share in them. "I know you'll want to watch," Mark had written in his email, and she was indeed very proud of what her son had just achieved, but her pride was tainted by the knowledge of how little he would enjoy it. _The Alliance officer in me knows how big a step forward this is for humanity. The mother in me can only think about the massive burden my son has to carry now._

She shook her head in resignation, stood, changed the channel back to the football game (which had now gone into overtime), and handed the remote back to the young officers. "I apologize for the intrusion," she told them. Seeing the unspoken question on their faces, she added, "And yes, that was my son." She turned, and left for her quarters. She brought her still half-full coffee cup with her, but left her meal tray. Officers took meals in the wardroom all the time, and sooner or later a steward would come to fetch it.

The executive officer's quarters aboard the _Kilimanjaro_ , like those aboard her sister ships _Tai Shan_ and _Aconcagua_ , were roughly equivalent to the captain's cabin aboard an Alliance cruiser, and almost half again the size of the captain's cabin on a frigate. They even came with their own office space and small but exclusive restroom. _It may sound entitled, but I think it's well-deserved_. The CO or XO of a dreadnought were the two highest postings aboard a ship in the Alliance Navy, only given to those with decades of exceptional service. From there, all that was left were admiral's stars and a desk job, or if one was exceptionally lucky, a fleet command.

Hannah was off duty at the moment, but her desk was still piled high with work. Ordinarily, she would've kept on top of it, but the past few days had been hectic. When word of the geth attack on Eden Prime had reached Arcturus, the brass had immediately dispatched the Fifth Fleet, one of the three fleets currently making up the Arcturus Reserve, to the aid of the stricken colony. The _Kilimanjaro_ , as the Fifth's flagship, had naturally gone along. They had arrived far too late to catch any geth ships in orbit. _And that may have been a good thing, given the reports we've pieced together about their flagship. The thing appears to have been twice our length and vastly outweighed us in tonnage. It would have easily outmatched us_. Deprived of the chance to engage in naval combat, the Fifth Fleet had instead spent the last two days deploying its attached troops to mop up the last remnants of geth planetside and providing emergency disaster relief to the ravaged city of Constant. It wasn't the most exciting work for the crew of the dreadnought, but it was vital, and there was a lot of it to do. _I've gotten maybe three hours of sleep since we arrived in system._

The next two hours were spent attacking the mound of forms and notifications that had piled up on her desk: both the normal personnel orders that came from the day to day running of a warship, and the various supply and personnel transfer authorizations arising from the Eden Prime relief effort. She made a fair dent in it all, but at last she could take no more. The coffee had been helpful, but she desperately needed actual rest, and the bed on the other side of the cabin was beckoning seductively. She saved her work, shut down her computer, staggered across the room, and flopped down on it…

And was seemingly immediately jolted awake by the insistent beeping of her omnitool from where she'd dropped it on the bedside table. A light was flickering on its holographic display about halfway up where her forearm would normally be, indicating an incoming urgent message. She fumbled for it and took the call.

"Shepud heah."

"Shepard." The voice of Vice Admiral Stephen Hackett, Commander of the Fifth Fleet, emanated from the omnitool. "Judging by the sound of your voice, I've woken you from a well-earned sleep. I apologize, I know how hard the last few days have been, but I'm afraid they're only going to get harder. I need you to meet me as well as Captain Hakes on the bridge in ten minutes. An urgent communication has just come in from Arcturus and we need to discuss it. Hackett out." The call cut off.

Hannah slowly got to her feet and looked at her bedside clock. _2113 hours_. She felt like crying. _Just when I'd finally gotten a break_. She made her way to the restroom, splashed water on her face, and straightened her rumpled fatigues as best she could. Hackett wouldn't have called unless it truly was urgent, and that meant she'd need to be functional enough to carry out whatever orders he issued.

It was nearly a half kilometer walk aft from her quarters to the bridge on Deck One, which gave her time to wake up a bit and ponder what might have occurred. She dismissed the possibility of an attack out of hand: she had been awakened by a private call from the admiral, not the blaring klaxons of general quarters. _If he needs both the captain and myself there, it has to be something to do with giving the ship new orders. Are we pulling out of Utopia?_

The Marines flanking the door of the _Kilimanjaro_ 's bridge snapped to attention and saluted as she approached. "Ma'am!" She returned the salute stiffly, and strode into the cavernous room.

Like everything else aboard it and her sisters, the _Kilimanjaro_ 's bridge was enormous and packed with cutting edge technology. The room was circular, set three quarters of the way aft on the ship's length, and was the approximate size of the average high school gymnasium. Like a gymnasium, the room was arranged in tiers around a central floor containing a tactical display. The tiers were packed with workstations tied into the dreadnought's main battery, secondary batteries, shield projectors, engines, and all other critical systems, as well as the network feeds that were unusually complex and powerful even in proportion, the better to coordinate the ships of the fleet a dreadnought would inevitably form the core of. The feeds converged into the tactical display in the center of the floor, giving a real time, three dimensional map of an ongoing engagement. Along with the more powerful and faster firing main gun, it was the most important improvement brought by the _Kilimanjaro_ class over the older _Everest_ s. _Drescher had to make do with a primitive 2D display a quarter the size at Shanxi. I wondered how she could get anything useful off the damn thing._

The display was dark at the moment, but standing next to its projector display in quiet conversation were the two men Hannah answered to aboard the _Kilimanjaro_ : Hackett and Captain Sean Hakes, the dreadnought's CO. They turned to her as she approached.

"Shepard." Stephen Hackett was in his mid-fifties, perhaps three years older than her, with a battered face and a low, gravelly voice. Like her, he'd been part of the Second Fleet when it had relieved Shanxi twenty-six years earlier, and had acquitted himself quite well. But where she'd been Admiral Drescher's personal aide, Hackett had commanded a frigate, and had led a wolfpack of several other frigates in destroying a turian cruiser. That successful combat command in what was still humanity's most glorious moment had sent him on a meteoric career trajectory that today had him in command of a fleet. "I understand congratulations are in order."

"I've done nothing noteworthy of late, sir," she said, knowing perfectly well what he meant.

"But your son has," Captain Hakes confirmed. Unlike her and Hackett, Hakes had not served at Shanxi. He had instead risen to his current lofty position through a combination of political connections and excellent performance in simulations and war games. _To be fair, he's done a decent job in the months I've been here._ "You must be very proud."

Hackett spoke again, sparing her from having to attempt to explain the complicated emotions she felt at Mark's elevation to Spectre and command of his own ship. "Regardless, Shepard, you should be aware that bringing up your son is more than just simple pleasantries. I trust you know what he's been assigned to do by the Council?"

"I can guess, sir. The Council generally sends one Spectre to chase down another, so undoubtedly they're going to have Mark hunt down the traitor who led the attack here." Hackett nodded.

"Unfortunately, that's the only tangible help we're getting from them. The Council made it very clear that they regard the geth threat to our colonies as purely our responsibility to deal with. Your son will deal with Saren, but it falls to the rest of the Navy to ward off these synthetics he's allied himself with." Hackett peered intently at her and Hakes. "That's why I've called you two up here. Arcturus Command has called an emergency meeting of all fleet commanders at Arcturus at 1200 tomorrow to discuss our response to the geth threat. I need you to prepare the _Kilimanjaro_ to leave Utopia ASAP, while I issue the necessary orders to the rest of the fleet. Get all Marines and shore parties back aboard, get the engines warmed up from station keeping, whatever else you need to do."

Captain Hakes looked as surprised as Hannah felt. "Excuse me, sir, but did you say ALL fleets? Not just the Arcturus Reserve or the Outer Patrols?"

"Sean, we're looking at the biggest threat to humanity in twenty six years." Hackett waved a hand in the general direction of Eden Prime below them. "That wasn't just another slave grab by pirates. That was an attack by a race of hostile synthetics as alien to us as the turians were a quarter century ago. We're at war, and it may end up taking everything humanity has to win."

 _ **1130 Hours AST, April 16, 2183**_

 _ **Docking Bay 127, Level 4, Port Wing**_

 _ **Arcturus Station, Arcturus, Arcturus Stream**_

Hannah Shepard had spent nearly all of her adult life on warships of one kind or another. Her childhood had been spent in the American South, but she had long since lost any particular fondness for the region other than its cuisine. When one lived one's life constantly in motion, it was hard to develop an attachment to any one place. Yet even so, she knew every inch of Arcturus Station.

The port wing of the station, where she, Captain Hakes, and Admiral Hackett had just disembarked from the _Kilimanjaro_ 's shuttle, was the residency wing. Here, the politicians of the Systems Alliance Parliament, their staffs, and the families of military officers who were lucky enough to get an apartment lived. For seventeen years, Hannah had raised Mark in one of those apartments, though she had not acquired it herself. That had been her husband's doing. She'd sold the place after her son came of age and joined the Navy himself; even though it had been fourteen years since his death on Shanxi, Mack's presence had lingered in every inch of the place. _And some other family undoubtedly had a much greater need of it than I did_.

The starboard wing was the shipbuilding wing, containing facilities to produce capital ships and cruisers for the Alliance, and the light industry to outfit them. The torus that joined it with the port wing was for politics. It was there that the Alliance's Parliament convened to govern Earth and her colonies, there that the brass of the Navy and Marine Corps planned and administrated their services, and there that the three of them were currently headed.

Arcturus Station, unlike the Citadel, was much too small and confined to allow for private transportation. Individuals needing to move quickly from place to place on the station instead made do with a system of public trams that had an annoying tendency to be late or break down, or else they walked. Since it was about eight kilometers from the docking bay to their destination, the latter was not an option. Luckily, there was a tram station just outside the docking bay. Even better, there was a tram there when they arrived, and it was headed in the direction they needed.

The ride to the central section of Arcturus was short and quiet. Neither Hackett nor Hakes evidently felt like talking, which suited Hannah just fine. She had been in a grim mood ever since Hackett's blunt statement that the Alliance was now at war above Eden Prime, and thinking of Mack had done nothing to improve it _. I suppose I'd known ever since we deployed to Utopia, but it's one thing to know in theory and another to hear it out loud._ _War. Not little border skirmishes like we've been having with the batarians off and on, a real, honest to God war. The last time humanity fought a war, it cost me my husband, my son his father, and the Alliance almost eighteen thousand brave men and women. How many will we lose this time?_ "Admiral, sir?" It was the first thing any of them had said since stepping off the shuttle.

"Yes, Shepard?"

"With your permission, sir, and yours as well, Captain, I'd like to take a detour before returning to the _Kilimanjaro_ after the conference. It shouldn't take more than an hour and a half."

"I see. Going to pay a visit to it?" She thought she could see a glint of understanding in Hackett's eye.

"Yes, sir."

"Permission granted. You'll have two and a half hours after the conference before I'll expect you back aboard, in case there's anything unexpected."

The tram hissed to a stop in Arcturus's central torus, and the three of them stepped out along with a crowd of fellow passengers. It wasn't the Presidium- that kind of scale and beauty had been well beyond Arcturus's builders- but care had nonetheless been taken to mimic nature in the hub of the station as much as possible. The relatively short stroll to the briefing room in the Navy's section reminded Hannah rather strongly of New York's Central Park, as it always had. _Though at least there's no pigeons here_.

The official headquarters of the Systems Alliance Navy and Marine Corps were actually located in Vancouver, back on Earth, but the military's section here was still quite large. The complex on Arcturus retained three large briefing rooms for situations like these, when large meetings or conferences needed to be held, officially designated A, B, and C. Unofficially, they'd always been known to the officers who had to use them as Annoying, Boring, and Comatose. It was to Boring that they directed their steps now.

An elderly woman in full Alliance dress uniform was standing just outside the door. "I'm disappointed, Stephen. The three of you are the last ones in despite being only one relay jump away. Mehru's been here an hour already, and she had to come all the way in from Elysium."

"I apologize, Admiral." Hackett saluted stiffly. "It took a bit longer than I would have liked to gather the fleet in from its patrol positions. There was also some difficulty retrieving some of our men from the surface of the planet."

"Of course. You're just in time anyway, so there's no harm done." Admiral of the Fleet Kastanie Drescher turned and inspected the other two officers; her eyes focused on Hannah. "Hannah. You're looking well. I don't doubt you've already heard this a fair few times, but congratulations on your son. He's made everyone in the Alliance very proud, and I imagine you most of all."

"Yes, ma'am," Hannah replied, her face perfectly straight. "I can't think of anything a mother could want more than to see her child on a highly dangerous mission to capture or kill a terrorist."

That brought a chuckle. "Indeed. Your mistake was letting him choose his future, Hannah: I made it very clear to my boys that I would personally see their papers disqualified if they ever tried to join." During Hannah's time as her aide, Admiral Drescher had taken on something of a big sister role to her, constantly giving advice and gentle corrections. The favor of the older woman had done much for Hannah's career, and she normally welcomed the personal conversation. But not now.

Thankfully, Drescher also had little interest in continuing the conversation at the moment. "I suppose we'd best get this over with. Come, all of you." She turned and marched through the door, continuing on towards the podium along the back wall while Hannah, Hackett, and Hakes moved into the rows of seats.

Admiral Drescher had not been lying; they were indeed the last ones in. The Systems Alliance Navy had seven fleets. The First and Fourth were on garrison duty in the Skyllian Verge and Attican Traverse respectively, known colloquially as the Outer Patrols. The Second, Fifth, and Sixth formed the Arcturus Reserve, ready to deploy to meet any serious threat to a colony on short notice, as the Fifth had done for Eden Prime. The Third and Seventh formed the Home Fleet, defending Earth and the Sol system. These were not permanent assignments, but rather rotated every two years to keep the crews fresh. The Admiral in command of each fleet was in attendance, along with the captain and executive officer of each one's flagship dreadnought, save for the Seventh Fleet, which was instead formed around the supercarrier _Einstein_. _Not for much longer, though_.

Admiral Drescher stepped up to the podium and tapped in a few commands. A large, three dimensional holographic map of the galaxy appeared alongside her, with the Alliance's claimed territory overlaid with a vivid blue. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen- I suppose it is technically afternoon now. Just over three days ago Alliance Standard Time, our colony world of Eden Prime-," the tiny dot of the Utopia system on the map lit up a bright, flashing red, "was attacked without warning by hostile synthetics. These synthetics have since been conclusively identified as geth. This is the first time any geth have been seen outside the Perseus Veil-," a medium-sized chunk of stars at the very tip of one of the Milky Way's spiral arms, on the far side of the galaxy, lit up purple, "in three hundred years. No organic ship has ever returned from a trip beyond the Veil, and it is impenetrable to all our long range telescopes. Only the most advanced spy probes in our inventory are theorized to be capable of returning with useful data, and until now we have had no reason to dispatch them. In summary, we have no useful intelligence whatsoever about our new enemy's industrial capacity, his fleet strength, or general numbers."

This caused a commotion among the assembled officers. Admiral Mehru Shah, a short Pakistani woman in command of the First Fleet, raised her hand. "Admiral, were the ground facilities on Eden Prime or the responding ships of the Fifth Fleet able to gain any useful data?"

"All sensor installations on the ground larger than an infantryman's helmet camera were apparently priority targets for the geth," Admiral Drescher replied. "As for the fleet, by the time the Fifth arrived in force, the geth were long gone. The only ship that responded in time to catch a glimpse of the enemy warships was the frigate _Normandy_ , which had already been en route to Eden Prime on a classified mission as part of its shakedown cruise. She managed to gain a fair amount of intelligence on the warships in orbit, as well as their flagship. The latter is apparently vastly larger than any of our own dreadnoughts, yet capable of planetary landings. The information has already been transmitted to our analysts, who are attempting to find any potential weaknesses in their designs."

Hannah remembered the Normandy's commissioning, just a scant few days ago. Everyone in that room had known something was up when the ship sailed with a full crew. _A classified mission to Eden Prime that took the ship there right as the geth attacked. If that's a coincidence, it's an incredibly lucky one_. Without that shakedown cruise, they'd be even more blind than they already were.

"In summary, we are facing a threat potentially many times greater than our own strength and completely alien to us, as we did during the First Contact War. Unlike then, the enemy is not in direct possession of one of our worlds, so we have no place to strike back at them other than their home territory, which is out of the question until we know vastly more about it. Neither is the Council willing or able to call a ceasefire as it did twenty-six years ago. Under the circumstances, we are faced with two choices. We may sit back, let our more exposed colonies in the Traverse and Verge fend for themselves, and conserve our strength so as to avoid the possibility of getting worn down in a battle of attrition with a superior force." That was what the manuals at the Naval War College would have recommended in this sort of situation, Hannah knew. Colonies could be retaken, but once the fleet was broken, the war was lost. But Kastanie Drescher had never been one to stand by and let her foe run amok. She would seek them out and hit them as hard as she could.

"Or, we could take the offensive," Drescher said, as Hannah had known she would. "The Perseus Veil is simply too far from Alliance space, even making use of the relay network, for the geth to have struck it without a network of advanced bases. Should we find and neutralize these bases, we will at the very least remove the geth capability to directly threaten our core worlds like Eden Prime or our more advanced colonies again. If we are lucky, we may provoke part of the geth fleet into an engagement on our terms." _And if we're unlucky, we may provoke the whole fleet_.

"After due consideration and consultation with the Defense Secretary, I have opted for the latter course. First and Fourth Fleets will double reconnaissance efforts in likely geth staging areas. All known mass relays with a direct connection to our space from the Terminus Systems are to be monitored for any sign of geth activity, and all radio frequencies known to be used by the geth are to be likewise observed."

Admiral Shah's hand rocketed up once more. "Admiral Drescher, my fleet simply does not have the resources to carry out that intensive of a reconnaissance and continue to perform our normal patrol duties, and I doubt the Fourth does either. I understand the magnitude of the geth threat, but it won't be much help to our colonists if we defend them from the geth only to let them get hit by pirates and slavers."

Drescher nodded. "You're quite right, Mehru. Which is why you'll be getting reinforcements. It has been decided to reorganize the deployment of our fleets for the duration of this conflict." A murmur of surprise flew around the room. "More specifically, Sixth Fleet will be moved from the Arcturus Reserve and into the Verge to assist First Fleet, while Seventh Fleet will be sent to back up Fourth Fleet in the Attican Traverse. Third Fleet will take Sixth's spot in the Reserve." The murmur became loud muttering.

Hannah was just as shocked as everyone else. Drescher was stripping the entire Home Fleet in order to prosecute her offensive. Arcturus was only one relay jump away from Sol, so Earth would not be remotely defenseless, but… _how in God's name did she get the politicians to agree to this?_ Fifth Fleet would remained assigned to Arcturus, not moving unless some critical threat presented it- and Hannah doubted any threat would arise in the coming campaign that the four fleets soon to be deployed to the frontier could not handle. _Unless the full force of the geth come out to play, and even then we'll just as likely pull back rather than throw good money after bad._ No, she doubted she'd be seeing any action in the coming war, and that left her with mixed emotions. She was hardly eager for a fight, she'd outgrown that youthful rashness long ago, but she didn't like the idea of sitting on the sidelines while others risked themselves.

The meeting began to break up not long after that, with the various admirals and captains present dispersing into smaller groups to discuss strategy and logistics, or just to catch up. Hannah did not linger. There was someplace she needed to be.

She caught another tram out of the central hub of the station, this time to the starboard wing. Arcturus Station, in addition to being the center of humanity's overarching government, was also one of its greatest shipyards. It was one of only five yards in Alliance space that was capable of producing cruisers, the bread and butter of any fleet's battle line. Even more importantly, it was one of only two shipyards (the other being Stonewall Shipyards over Luna), capable of producing dreadnoughts.

The Treaty of Farixen, over a thousand years old, was one of the central documents of the Citadel Conventions. Written in the aftermath of the devastating Krogan Rebellions, it had enshrined the military supremacy of the Citadel Council, and above all the turians, by setting in stone the precise size of the navy a species was allowed to maintain. The treaty governed all classes of ships- what qualified as what, what weapons were legal or illegal to mount on certain ships- but most famously, it governed dreadnoughts in the "5-3-1" ratio. Simply put, the turians were allowed to build as many battleships as they wanted. Any species that sat on the Council alongside them- now, as when the Treaty of Farixen had been written, that meant the asari and salarians- were allowed to build three for every five the turians had. And any species that merely held an associate membership in the galactic government got one for every five turian ships. Humanity fell into the last group.

The modern turian fleet boasted no less than thirty seven dreadnoughts. The asari had built up to their maximum allowance of twenty one, and the mighty _Destiny Ascension_ was usually taken as being the equal of any three other battleships. The salarians had sixteen, each equipped with the most advanced technology available. The other associate races- the volus, the hanar, the elcor- had not built a single one between them, trusting in the turians and asari to protect them.

Humanity's introduction to the galactic community had been a war with the mightiest organic navy. Hostility had since been replaced with cooperation, but the Systems Alliance was not about to trust its defense to any other race. The Navy had attempted to circumvent its treaty restrictions by building carriers, something no other navy had in any meaningful numbers. There were also the battlecruisers, called "pocket dreadnoughts" by the Council races in a mixture of derision and grudging respect, which weighed in just under Farixen's tonnage criteria for a dreadnought yet hit almost as hard. But at the end of the day, there were simply no substitutes that could truly replace the real thing. Humanity was permitted to build seven dreadnoughts under Farixen. The Navy roster currently had six, each bearing the name of one of the great mountains of Earth.

Hannah got off the tram at a point about halfway along the starboard wing of Arcturus Station. From there, it was another short walk to Construction Cradle 2, the largest of the station's drydock facilities, stretching more than a kilometer and a half along the exterior of the wing. As she entered the suite of offices and shops overlooking the drydock, a balding man hurried up to her.

"I'm sorry, this is a restricted area, you'll need to… ah, Captain Shepard. You didn't send any word ahead about a visit. Have you come to check on progress?" Hannah nodded. "Right this way, then."

The foreman led her to a large, floor-to-ceiling window with the drydock spread out below. Inside it, the Alliance's seventh dreadnought was taking shape.

The kilometer long ship was very obviously only partially complete. Great sections of hull were little more than superstructure, the infinite stars clearly visible through the gaps. The immense mass accelerator cannon that a dreadnought was built around was there, and so was the reactor core that powered it. Much of the armor plating had not yet been installed, with work still continuing on the areas inside, but enough had been put in for a name to be stenciled in letters fifty meters high: _Orizaba_.

From the moment the Navy had announced the construction of its last legal battleship, Hannah had known she would command her. The official orders, arriving days later, had been a mere formality. She was the logical choice. She had been given command of her first frigate a mere two years after Shanxi, and in the decades since had commanded ships of nearly every type that humanity had. She had taken out the first battlecruiser humanity had built, the _Nile_. The _Einstein_ , current flagship of the Seventh Fleet, she'd captained that too. She'd only been given the XO position aboard the _Kilimanjaro_ to refamiliarize herself with the particular workings of dreadnoughts before she took command of the Alliance's newest one, though in truth she didn't need to. Hannah was a big ship girl at heart.

From the moment she'd gotten the orders, up until just a few days ago, thinking of the _Orizaba_ had given her pleasure. The ultimate command for any sailor in any navy, the final step to admiral's stars. Not to mention the dreadnought would be sent to Seventh Fleet, the only fleet currently without its own battleship. She respected and rather liked Hackett, but she'd grown to be close friends with Admiral McGranahan, the commander of Seventh, during her time on the _Einstein_ , and looked forward to working with him again.

Now, however, looking at the half-formed gray beast in the cradle beneath her, she was afraid.

"How long until she's finished?" she asked the foreman, not looking away from the _Orizaba_.

"At current rate of construction? She'll probably be commissioned sometime in November," the foreman shrugged. "October, if everything goes perfectly, which I don't expect, there's always mishaps or setbacks."

Six or seven months. In all likelihood, the outcome of the fight with the geth would be decided by then. Humanity would go to war with the battleships it had, and would hope that they were enough. _And if they aren't… no. They are. They have to be_.

"Ma'am?" The foreman leaned forward and peered at her face. "If you don't mind my asking, is everything alright? You seem worried about something."

"Thank you, but no." She waved him away. "Everything is fine."

 **Author's Note: There should've been a couple more ANs attached to my first five chapters, but I didn't realize you can't edit an already published chapter until after I'd put them up. Let me start, then, by noting that in the previous chapters, I introduced my first major alteration from the games: the working of the Council. In the games, Sparatus is bad cop, Tevos is good cop, and Valern is just kind of there, but ultimately they all work in unison to obstruct humanity and Shepard/the player. That is changing here. I want to present a Council that is not a monolithic entity, where each Councilor is fundamentally looking out for their own species above all else, making and shifting alliances based on what they think will bring their own advantage. You know, like actual politicians.**

 **Regarding this chapter: fans of American football will realize I have an NFL game being played in April. There are two explanations for this: one, the placement of football season has changed in 165 years, and two, I don't know any other sport well enough to give a good depiction of its fans arguing. You pick.**

 **Hannah Shepard is a key element of my plan to show a larger dimension to what's going on during the ME timeline. She's a sadly underused character in the games, and I plan to use her to give a inside look at the Alliance Navy and its greater role in the fight against the geth, and eventually the Reapers.**


	7. Liara I

_**0900 Hours AST, February 14, 2183**_

 _ **T-GES Mineral Works Survey Site #87-9443/University of Nyxedrase Archaelogical Expedition Excavation Site "Biru", 648 Kilometers SSW of Nova Yekaterinburg**_

 _ **Therum, Knossos System, Artemis Tau Cluster**_

It was a fairly mild day of weather on Therum- that was, the ambient temperature had dipped below 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and the prevailing winds were carrying most of the ash from the nearby rivers of lava away from the dig site and their camp. They were not always so lucky. On some days, the environment became so hazardous as to require environmental suits to even step out of shelter for a moment. The entire planet was a sea of volcanic activity. This turned up extremely valuable mineral deposits from the core on a regular basis, but it also rendered the surface into an eerily accurate depiction of hell as described in several prehistoric asari cultures. Not for the first time or the last, Liara T'Soni wondered what possibly could have possessed the Protheans to establish major settlements here.

The expedition had been in the works for months, but she had only been here for a week and a half. That she was here at all was something of a minor miracle considering all the paperwork that had been necessary to mount the dig. First there had been negotiations with the Alliance for permission to excavate on one of their colonies. Then they'd had to get permission from the colonial government of Therum, then from T-GES Mineral Works, who actually owned the land they proposed to dig on. Then she'd had to get permission from her own University of Serrice to tag along on the expedition, which was officially being mounted by the University of Nyxedrase. The last of the paperwork had officially been filed mere days before she'd left.

It had all been worth it, though, she thought, as she looked at the latest scans from underground on her omnitool. The complex under their feet was the largest set of Prothean buildings that had ever been found intact and in working order. It only remained to keep them that way.

"You _cannot_ keep indiscriminately blasting away down there with heavy mining lasers! The danger that you could destroy priceless artifacts is simply too high! This was settled months ago!" Dr. Ishinathea Mainus, the expedition lead, glared at the human miner.

The bald man glared back. Rivers of sour-smelling sweat poured down his face and soaked his shirt. _Why_ does _human sweat stink so much_? Liara filed it away as yet another thing she did not understand about this strange species. "Ladies, the only thing that was settled was that you asari had the right to come out here and poke around in those buildings for whatever doodads you're looking for. At no point were you given the right to screw around with our mining operations. This is private property, you're only here by our permission, and we'll blast away wherever we damn well please."

Dr. Mainus opened her mouth furiously, but Liara laid a hand on her shoulder. "May I, Doctor?" She looked at the human. "Destruction of Prothean technology or artifacts is a heinous crime in Citadel space. Should any harm come to these structures because of your actions, rest assured the Council would levy severe penalties upon your government, and you yourself would likely face significant prison time." Liara had faced recalcitrant property owners before on previous expeditions, and that threat usually got their attention.

Not this time. The human foreman merely snorted in contempt. "Yeah, sure, I bet the Council has my work crew on the top of their list. I'll tell you what: I'll give you girls and your friends another two hours to go pick over that set of buildings one more time. Then we're going to level the place for our new set of tunnels. I'd advise you to leave before that happens." He turned and walked out of the garage back to his men, currently moving haulers into place for the titanium and nickel they expected to rip out of the ground.

Dr. Mainus was shaking in fury. Liara was angry too, but she didn't see what they could hope to do about it. The humans _would_ be arrested, sooner or later, if they persisted in their desecration of the Prothean structures; the Council took such matters very seriously, no matter what the foreman thought. But even if police officers left the Citadel at this very moment, it would still be days before they arrived at Therum. The Knossos system was at least three days FTL flight from the cluster's mass relay. And the five asari making up the expedition couldn't exactly subdue the miners to prevent it. Liara was the only one among them who'd ever fired a shot in anger.

"Dr. Mainus," she said at length, "I think we'd better take him up on that offer."

Mainus exhaled. "You're right. Let's collect the others. If we've only got two hours to find what we can here, then we need to make the most of them." The two of them glumly left the air conditioned garage and began to make their way back down the slope toward their camp.

It was a short walk, perhaps a quarter of a kilometer, but it was long enough for Liara's lab uniform to become completely stuck to her. Asari did not normally sweat; the tiny scales that covered their skin were highly efficient at radiating and dispersing heat. The furnace of Therum was too much for them to handle, however, and Liara had already drunk three bottles of water since waking up three hours before.

They found the other three members of the expedition inside the environmentally sealed tent that served as their quarters. Kashissu T'Naora sat at the table in the middle of the tent typing away at something on her personal workstation, while Glari Aveos sat across from her, nursing a cup of bitterroot tea. Valira Shila was still asleep in her bunk. All three, like Dr. Mainus, were tenured full professors at UN.

Glari looked up as Liara and Dr. Mainus entered. "What'd the human say? Are they going to stop the mining?"

"They are not," Dr. Mainus said grimly. "As a matter of fact, they're going to begin blasting in less than two hours."

Kashissu stopped typing, shocked, her attention totally diverted from what Liara could now see was her preliminary report on the Prothean structures at Site Biru. "You can't be serious."

"I assure you I am." Dr. Mainus indicated Valira's prone form in the bunk. "You'd better get Dr. Shila up. We have very little time to get as much useful information out of this site as we can before the miners destroy it." Glari scrambled to obey, shaking a very groggy Valira awake, while Kashissu hurriedly saved her draft and began grabbing her gear. Both of them were cursing in a very unladylike manner.

Within ten minutes, all five of them were back out of the tent and into the brutal heat outside. Glari and Dr. Mainus led the way, talking animatedly about what was most crucial to save from the complex in the limited time they had. Kashissu and Valira followed, lugging the bulky storage equipment that safely held any notable physical artifacts as well as discs containing any data they could get off the ancient computer systems. Liara followed last of all, her mind doing calculations. It had taken them ten minutes to get back to the camp from the industrial garage at the top of the hill, and five minutes to collect the others. It would likely take almost twenty minutes to get to the entrance of the mine shaft leading down to the Prothean buildings carrying the storage equipment, and another twenty to get down to the bottom. _Half of our time gone before we even begin work_.

As they reached the top of the hill and began walking up the ramp to the mineshaft, snatches of Glari's conversation with Dr. Mainus floated back to her.

"- such a limited time, it may be best to split up and cover more ground. Dr. Shila and I can take the upper two levels, search for anything there, and you can take Dr. T'Naora and Dr. T'Soni, divide the bottom floor into sectors, and see if there is anything to be found there."

"Ishi, with all due respect, we can't afford to be that methodical. We need to focus on one small area, get in, get out. I propose that we-,"

Liara shook her head. She still had not gotten used to being part of a team. Both as a graduate student and as a professor, she had mounted many archaeological digs across the galaxy. All of them had been solo. The findings she'd made on them had given her an impressive amount of name recognition for such a relatively young academic, true, the articles she'd published based on said findings garnering rave reviews and quite a few prizes. But those digs had also served to reinforce tendencies she'd had since childhood. She was uncomfortable around other asari, and even more so around aliens. On a solo dig on some uncharted world, if one saw another sapient being they were almost certain to be pirates or slavers looking for loot or some entertainment.

It wasn't that her fellow researchers were bad people, she thought as they tromped down the metal catwalks inside the mine and entered the elevator that would take them to the bottom of the shaft. Glari in particular made every effort to be friendly. Liara simply preferred to work alone. One couldn't embarrass oneself in front of a book.

The elevator rattled to a halt on the cavern floor, and she immediately abandoned that train of thought. The roof of the underground complex was only perhaps ten feet underground, and they'd been traveling past its walls the whole elevator ride down, but only now did the full expanse of the thing truly make itself apparent.

The Prothean structure resembled nothing so much as a colossal white honeycomb. Large hexagonal chambers with a ten foot diameter were evenly spaced along its walls. They had no back wall, instead leading out to an elevator shaft behind them, complete with elevator. Taken as a whole, the complex was like no other Prothean ruin Liara had ever seen. That it was Prothean she had no doubt: the complex had been dated to approximately a century and a half after the beginning of the Third Age, and there were no other known spacefaring races in that time period.

But the aesthetic was all wrong. All other Prothean structures and technology she had ever seen had been an iridescent green, not this stark white. The material making up the complex appeared to be stone on first glance, but closer inspection revealed it to be an incredibly strong and durable polycarbonate, which helped explain how it had lasted fifty thousand years not only intact, but with a functioning power grid. They'd learned that last bit when Kashissu had managed to summon the elevator down to the cavern floor. It even still had functioning air conditioning, which was nothing short of a direct blessing from the Goddess herself, because otherwise the cavern would've been hotter than the surface. Liara could not figure out what made Site Biru so different, and that made the human work crew maneuvering a mining laser into position on the far side of the cavern all the more agonizing.

"Okay, listen up," Dr. Mainus said briskly. She looked at the rest of them, not sparing the humans a glance. "Dr. Aveos has convinced me that the best way to spend our limited time here- according to my omnitool's chronometer, we now have less than an hour to make our last measurements- is to obtain as complete an understanding of one area as possible. So. Let's get to it." She gestured to the nearest chamber.

The next forty five minutes or so were spent poring over nearly every inch of that chamber. They imaged every square millimeter of the walls, chipped out tiny pieces for analysis, and traced the path of the power conduits that flowed into the chamber from both directions. Through it all, they were still no closer to understanding the purpose of the chamber or the larger complex.

Liara felt her frustration mounting. It wasn't fair. The most unique Prothean ruin she had ever seen, so large and complex she could happily spend years studying it, about to be casually blasted into oblivion because a human mining crew couldn't be bothered to dig for heavy metals a few kilometers to the east or west _. It's not like there's anything here that they couldn't find elsewhere. But for me, there most certainly is_. If only there was a way they could salvage more information about the place…

With ten minutes to go on the chronometer before they needed to leave, Liara decided that she had seen all she could in the chamber. She slowly walked into the elevator shaft.

It wasn't a true elevator shaft, not the way it was understood in Citadel space. A small ledge, perhaps five feet long, ran around a circular shaft with a gap fifty feet wide in the middle. Chambers identical to the one the rest of the team was still frantically working in dotted the wall at regular intervals, and when Liara looked up, she could see dozens more. A large circular platform formed the elevator itself. It was currently on their level, thank the Goddess. Liara did not like the thought of walking on the thin ledge without the platform there to fill the gap.

As she looked about the shaft, she saw something that had escaped her attention on her previous visits to the bottom level of Site Biru. A small podium stood almost exactly between the entrances to two more chambers, about twenty feet further on. From where she stood, it looked oddly similar to a computer terminal such as one might find on the Citadel.

Liara's pulse quickened. Nobody understood the Prothean language, in large part because no physical books or writing had survived the millennia, and only scraps of data, not nearly enough to construct a workable lexicon. Knowledge of their culture was gained by studying the context of artifacts, knowledge of their technology gained by taking it apart. The data that could be gained from an intact computer system could not only reveal the purpose of the complex; it could, in time, completely revolutionize the greater understanding of Prothean civilization in modern academia. _I knew the presence of a functional power grid made something like this possible, but I never truly dared to hope…_

As she approached the podium, it flared to life. A holographic interface projected out from it in typical Prothean green, waiting for user input. She almost squealed in joy.

Without any knowledge of the Prothean language, there was no way to know whether this truly was a terminal for a larger computer mainframe, or merely, say, a control panel for something. Liara brought up her omnitool, and attempted to establish a connection with the terminal. After perhaps ten seconds, her tool _ping_ ed, and she tapped the button marked "Begin Data Transfer".

Almost immediately, both her omnitool and the holographic interface flared a deep red, with the latter emitting a harsh buzzing sound. Liara hastily cut the connection. _Obviously a security system of some sort. Hopefully that's an indication of a computer system with data worth protecting_.

Painfully aware of just how little time she had to get something, anything useful out of this, she peered closer at the interface. It had now formed itself into a five-by-four grid of glowing green keys with unreadable Prothean script on each. Holding her breath, Liara hesitantly reached out and pressed the middle key on the far left column.

It chimed and turned yellow.

She pressed the second key from the bottom on the second column from the right.

It chimed and turned yellow.

She pressed the top key on the second column from the left.

Again, it chimed and turned yellow, and as it did so, a deep tone reverberated throughout the shaft, growing louder and lower with every passing second. It suddenly ceased, and Liara could hear a loud _pop_ from every chamber in the complex, along with a sudden commotion from her fellow researchers still in the chamber. Dr. Mainus's voice cut through the noise. "Dr. T'Soni! A word, if you please!"

Liara retraced her steps, unable to stifle the growing feeling of bitter disappointment. It had been a control panel of some kind after all. Her desperate fumbling had not yielded any new information about the purpose of Site Biru, or any data that might lead to a breakthrough in the understanding of the Prothean language. They would have to leave with no more than whatever they had been able to collect in the past forty-five minutes, in addition to the data gathered on the top levels over the past week. The expedition would not end, there were other potential Prothean sites on Therum, but none with the potential of Site Biru.

She rounded the corner into the chamber containing her fellow researchers and stifled a gasp of shock. A blue energy curtain had descended over the far end, the one they had entered from, and the others were now clustered around it.

Kashissu heard her entrance and whirled to face her. "Did you do this? HOW?!" Her voice was a very odd mixture of anger and delight.

"There's a terminal of some kind approximately twenty feet further along the circumference of the elevator shaft. It appears to be a control panel. I pressed a few buttons in an attempt to gain access to it." Liara stared at the barrier curtain. It was separating them from the route they had used to get back to the surface. _Have I just trapped us in here, right as the miners begin blasting the ruins out from beneath us?_

"This is fascinating," Glari murmured, leaning close to the shimmering energy barrier. "No visible emitters, yet a field that seems to be proof against both physical blows and energy discharges." Valira was pressing her head within millimeters of the curtain, tilting her head up and down in an attempt to see how far it went.

Dr. Mainus was staring at the barrier, her face unnaturally calm for the situation which they now found themselves. "Do you believe you can turn this back off if the need arises, Dr. T'Soni?"

 _If the need arises?_ "I beg your pardon, Dr. Mainus, but don't we need to evacuate immediately? By my chronometer, we have at most a minute and a half before the humans turn the mining laser upon the foundations of this structure."

A slow smile spread upon the face of the team lead. "I believe you may have changed their plans, Dr. T'Soni. Look." Dr. Mainus gestured towards the energy field.

Liara looked.

The barrier was brightly colored, but nearly translucent. There was a nearly unobstructed view of the cavern beyond, including the mining laser that had been set up to target the foundations of the complex. When Liara had left the chamber ten minutes before, there had been a team of at least a dozen humans clustered around it, making the final adjustments and calibrations before igniting it.

Now the space around it was deserted. She could only see a few humans at all, perhaps two or three, running toward the base of the tower. The rest of them must already be there.

Liara could only think of one reason they might be doing that. She looked at Valira, still fruitlessly trying to see the extent of the barrier. _It must reach all the way down to the foundations._ Her mind raced. If the barrier shielded the foundations, would it be strong enough to stop the mining laser? The humans seemed to think so. If they were prevented from beginning their mining operations, what would they do?

She soon found out.

The human foreman came tearing up from the floor of the cavern, his footsteps clanging on the metal catwalk. In marked contrast to her and Dr. Mainus' earlier conversation with him, where he had dismissed them with mild irritation and a healthy dose of contempt, his face was now dark with fury. Liara felt a moment's burst of vindictive pleasure, then immediately felt guilty.

"What the hell did you do, you goddamn azure whores!" the man screamed, beside himself with fury.

Dr. Mainus stepped forward. Her emotions now mirrored the human's in their earlier confrontation, their places reversed. She held the cards now, and it showed in her demeanor. "I believe that is obvious. We decided that we did not wish to let you destroy these ruins, so we put measures in place to stop you."

"Turn it off! Turn it off and get the hell out of my mine, right fucking now, or I swear I'll-,"

"You'll what? Will you undermine us with your mining laser?" Dr. Mainus waved her hand lazily, and the human somehow flushed even darker. "I suggest you calm down, and look at this situation logically. Before we activated the barrier curtain, we sent a signal to the Citadel via our omnitools explaining your actions and requesting backup- yes, we have reception into the comm buoy network from down here, asari craft guilds have produced omnitools far superior to your human ones- and received confirmation that it is en route. We have more than enough food and water down here to last until the team from the Citadel arrives and arrests all of you for felony desecration of a Prothean site. Time is on our side, not yours. I suggest you negotiate."

Liara shook her head silently, stunned at the team lead's gall. Nearly every word Dr. Mainus had said was a blatant lie, possibly including _and_ and _the_. Asari omnitools _were_ superior to human ones, but not nearly enough to get a signal through 30 feet of rock. As for the food and water, they each had one canteen, and she thought she'd seen Kashissu stuff a few protein bars into her pockets before they left the tent. If she was persuaded to share them, that might buy them six hours' worth of calories. Dr. Mainus was bluffing, and all it would take for the humans to call it would be an inspection of the food supplies at camp.

The human foreman was now so enraged, his face flushed a deep dark purple- _interesting, I didn't know humans could turn that color, his skin tone is almost asari now_ \- that he seemed to have lost the capacity for speech. Dr. Mainus apparently took this for encouragement.

"Therum is, for its size, one of the most mineral rich worlds in Citadel space. I cannot imagine that the lodes directly beneath these ruins are so valuable that you cannot find their equal within, say, five kilometers."

"It's not that simple." Several more humans had moved up beside their foreman, and one of these, a man with skin so dark a brown as to be almost black, now spoke. "We got orders straight from the top. We need to dig here. Not some place way far away on the other side of the planet, here."

"I see. Well, Mr.- I'm sorry, I don't believe we've been introduced?"

"Okwegbuanam. Ndamukong Okwegbuanam." Liara blinked. Had her translator malfunctioned?

"A pleasure, Mr. Okwegbuanam," Dr. Mainus said smoothly. "Perhaps I may be of some assistance to you. I'm certain you humans are aware of long asari can live. I myself am approximately six hundred and fifty eight years old by the standard Thessian calendar. I'm not entirely certain of what the equivalent is on the standard human calendar." Liara saw the growing crowd of humans exchange uneasy glances with each other, and heard muttering begin to spread amongst them. Asari lifespans were the exception among the sapient races. Humans, with the aid of modern medicine, could live to about one hundred and fifty, much more the norm. At one hundred and six, she herself was barely out of adolescence; as a human, she would've been ancient.

The team lead continued, seemingly oblivious. "In that time, I've dealt with many corporations. They varied in many ways, but they all shared two things in common: they were concerned about profit before else, and their executives lived in fear of legal action being taken against them. I can assure you that should you begin digging at a different site, and should you turn up valuable metals there, your superiors will not particularly care where they came from. I can equally assure you that should you persist in attempting to destroy these ruins, T-GES Mineral Works _will_ face heavy litigation by representatives of the Citadel Council, and your superiors will likely punish you for it."

The humans shifted, even more uneasy now. Dr. Mainus' bluff seemed, unbelievably, to be working.

"In addition, I believe I am correct in the belief that you are paid on the basis of the minerals you extract and refine? Why, then, are you standing here, pointlessly arguing with us, when you could be beginning work on a new site that will run uninterrupted?"

That did it. The miners slowly began to leave the shaft, singly at first, then in small groups. In seemingly no time at all, only their foreman was left, who still had not recovered the power of speech.

Dr. Mainus looked at him. "You'll have trouble digging up anything by yourself," she said mildly. The man turned and stormed away.

When he was no longer in sight, Liara let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She could feel Glari, Kashissu, and Valira doing the same beside her.

"That was incredible, Ishi." Glari spoke for them all. "How in the name of the Goddess did you think of that? How did you know it would work?"

"In all honesty, I didn't." Dr. Mainus wore a small smile. "Merely an educated guess." She waved a hand dismissively. "In any case, I believe we should now consider our next move, since it appears we now have this cavern to ourselves for the foreseeable future."

Only now did it begin to dawn on Liara. The humans had abandoned the cavern and their mining laser. They could investigate the Prothean complex to their hearts content. There might yet be an actual computer mainframe buried somewhere within, with all manner of knowledge contained within.

They might yet discover the purpose of Site Biru.

"Doctor Mainus, I think Valira and I should return to camp and grab some more equipment, as well as bedrolls and food," Glari offered. "I think we won't want to leave the complex for the next few days."

"An excellent idea, Dr. Aveos," Dr. Mainus agreed. "In order for any of us to leave, however, we will need to lower this barrier curtain. Dr. T'Soni, might you lead me to this control panel of yours?"

 _ **1253 Hours AST, April 15, 2183**_

 _ **T-GES Mineral Works Survey Site #87-9443/University of Nyxedrase Archaelogical Expedition Excavation Site "Biru", 648 Kilometers SSW of Nova Yekaterinburg**_

 _ **Therum, Knossos System, Artemis Tau Cluster**_

Liara sighed with frustration and closed her omnitool. Her latest attempt to patch into the comm buoy network had fared no better than the previous five that day.

It wasn't that this was an unusual occurrence in and of itself, necessarily- Therum was a very remote industrial outpost, with constant volcanic activity magnifying the effects of a powerful magnetic field. Even on the surface as she was at the moment, there was only so much an omnitool could do to get a signal through the atmosphere. Liara was used to this sort of thing from her solo digs, often in much more remote places, but that didn't mean she liked it. She did want to read the news occasionally, after all.

"Still no luck, after all this time?" Liara looked up to see Glari standing in the entranceway of the tent, looking utterly worn out. She had spent the last six hours down in the bowels of Site Biru, attempting to pry secrets out of the stubbornly impenetrable complex.

"No. None." Liara reached for a packaged field ration. Another downside of long expeditions- the fresh food ran out quickly, and there was no opportunity to go grocery shopping.

Glari groaned and set her pack down on the floor with a thump, then flopped into the chair on the opposite side of the table from Liara. "I'd hoped at least something would have gone right around here." Liara shook her head in sympathy as she slit the packaging on her late lunch.

In the two months since they'd successfully convinced the miners to dig elsewhere, the five of them had crawled under, over, around, and through seemingly every inch of the underground complex that formed Site Biru. They'd learned a lot; samples of the unique polycarbonate that formed the walls of the place had been sent back to asari space for analysis. They'd managed to discover a whole new wing of the complex five weeks ago, this one with a more traditional Prothean aesthetic, which had led to their biggest coup of all when Kashissu uncovered what seemed to be an office of some sort. From that, they'd recovered no less than four intact Prothean data disks, which had duly been sent back to their universities.

The successes were undeniable, but the greatest prizes they'd hoped to find remained beyond their reach. If there was a central computer mainframe in Site Biru, they had seen no trace of it, not even in Kashissu's office. The place obviously still had power, but they had found no generators. Above all, they had still found no hint of what the place had originally been. The data disks would likely contain clues, but they could easily take years or even decades to fully decode.

Glari slumped in her seat, and Liara tried to think of something to say to lift her fellow researcher's spirits. It was difficult, particularly when she herself shared Glari's frustrations. _Goddess, but I despise social interactions_.

"Where are the others, do you know?" she finally asked, settling on an attempt to change the subject.

"Kashissu left a couple of hours ago to begin some minor work at Site Eshfinea," Glari said tiredly. Site Biru was the largest and most intriguing Prothean site on Therum, but there were several potential others that the expedition had flagged. Site Eshfinea was the closest of these, fifty four kilometers away to the northwest. "Valira went to negotiate for some more supplies with the human miners so we don't have to keep eating that packaged crap every day."

"Dr. Mainus?"

"She's still down in the ruins. She wanted you to come down and look at a few things when you have a moment to spare."

"I'll go in a few minutes, as soon as I finish this." Liara waved her plastic spork at her ration. "Did Valira say how long she might be? The human's camp isn't that far from here, and I would greatly appreciate something more fresh."

"She should be back within the next hour and a half. When you and Ishi are done talking, there'll be some fresh food waiting on you both back up here." Glari was the only one on close enough terms with Dr. Mainus to refer to her in such a familiar manner.

Normally that would've been enough for Liara, but a week and a half of nothing but gray mush had frayed her patience where food was concerned. She activated her omnitool and attempted to call Valira, then frowned and lowered it. There was no signal back from the miners' camp either.

"Liara, I think your omnitool may just be on the fritz," Glari suggested. Liara ran a diagnostic. It came up clean.

"Okay, maybe she's talking with their foreman and doesn't want to be disturbed or something, and switched her omnitool off," Glari said, looking slightly disgruntled now. "Don't give me that look, Liara. Honestly, what are you expecting, that she's been suddenly abducted by slavers in the last half hour?"

"We _are_ on a human frontier world, Glari," Liara pointed out. "Dangerously close to batarian space. This is a prime target for raiders." Saying the words, acknowledging the tiny pit of unease that had been in the back of her mind since the second time she'd failed to get a connection with the comm buoys, brought it bubbling to the surface. She walked over to her bags, as Glari watched her with a combination of exhaustion and exasperation on her face.

Liara shifted aside the layers of clothing, personal hygiene kit, and assorted other detritus until she saw a gleam of silver at the bottom. She reached down and pulled out a compacted Predator heavy pistol, along with a slim leather belt and holster and three thermal clips. Military-grade hardsuits had magnetic hardpoints for weapons in addition to their other useful features, but sadly she didn't have one of those.

As Liara slotted a heat sink into the grip of the gun and cinched the belt around her waist, Glari rolled her eyes and got up. "Now that you're well protected against the army of batarians that's waiting for you between here and the entrance to the site, I remind you yet again that Dr. Mainus is waiting for you. As for me, I need a nap. Don't worry; I'll keep your rear secured against the enemy." She unceremoniously walked over to her bunk and fell across it.

Liara paused, doubt raging inside her. Glari was likely right. There were any number of reasons that Valira might have turned off her omnitool, or simply declined to take a call, that did not involve hostiles descending onto the world. Even if Valira did have her 'tool on, the atmosphere of the planet might very well have interfered with the call. Just because they'd never before failed to get a signal to what was essentially just over the hill didn't mean it couldn't happen.

She didn't put the pistol back in her baggage, though. Better to have it and not need it. And she was feeling too lazy at the moment to unbuckle the belt and remove the thermal clip.

Liara grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler at the foot of the table and chugged half of it in one go. She wasn't particularly thirsty, but she would still need the hydration; she'd likely sweat it all out by the time she reached the entrance to the shaft. She placed the bottle in the drink carrier of her backpack and slung the latter over her shoulder.

That done, she walked over to the door of the tent, stepping quietly so as not to wake Glari, who was already asleep fully clothed, and checked the environmental readout.

Temperature… 115 degrees Fahrenheit, that was good, another relatively mild day on Therum.

Wind… 20 kph, gusting up to 30 kph, blowing currently from the northeast. That wasn't nearly so good. Northeast lay the most active volcano in the region, spewing ash into the atmosphere, and all over the campsite at the moment.

An ashfall like that would block all sorts of communications. Liara's shoulders sagged in relief. Glari had been right. There was a perfectly normal explanation for the failure to get in touch with Valira. Although the wind must've changed within the last few minutes, since Glari hadn't been wearing a breath mask when she came in the tent, and she'd been failing to patch into the buoy network for hours…

A breath mask! She'd asphyxiate in seconds outside without one, from these readings. Liara reached over to the enviro gear rack and grabbed one, hooking the catches over her two lowest head crests. She sucked in a deep breath, to check that it was working, then pushed through the environmentally-sealed double doors and headed outside.

Her eyes were immediately assailed with a blast of hot gases, stinking of sulfur and other things straight from the bowels of the planet. Squinting against the haze, she began picking her way up the slope towards the entrance of the mine.

Nothing shot at her. No batarians loomed up out of the falling ash, leering at her and brandishing a slave collar. By the time Liara reached the entrance of the mine shaft, the weight of the Predator on her hip was more embarrassing than comforting. _All those solo digs have left me paranoid._

She keyed open the heavy door to the shaft, slid inside, and removed the breath mask. As she hooked it into a carry position on her belt, Liara reached up with her other hand and rubbed her stinging eyes. Even with her eyes reduced to slits, the caustic air blown from the volcano had hurt. She'd probably need to go to a doctor whenever they returned to civilization.

Liara tromped down the now familiar path to the elevator, her feet clanging on the metal grating of the catwalks. She had no idea where Dr. Mainus might be in here.

"Dr. T'Soni!" The cry reached her just before she entered the elevator. Looking over the side of the catwalk, she saw Dr. Mainus peering back up at her from two levels further down. "Good to see you've arrived. Please, come over here, there's a few things I wish to discuss with you."

Liara entered the elevator and hit the indicator for the appropriate level. A scant few seconds later, she stepped out and turned toward the stark white structure of Site Biru. Dr. Mainus stood in the nearest chamber, bent intently over something, silhouetted against the void of the Prothean elevator shaft behind her. The Prothean elevator itself was at least six levels further down at the moment.

"Take a look at this," Dr. Mainus said in her usual brusque tone of voice, thrusting a data pad at her. Liara took it and examined it. It contained the latest ultrasound mapping results of the internal power conduits running through the site. "What do you think?"

"With respect, Dr. Mainus, I see nothing different from our previous attempts at mapping the conduits. There is no hint at a central hub, a place where they might originate from containing the generators- wait." Liara's eyes narrowed as she looked closer. There were spikes of energy emanating from regular intervals along the length of the conduits, almost like- "They built the generators into the conduits themselves?"

"Very good, Dr. T'Soni." Dr. Mainus took the datapad back. "It took Dr. Aveos almost three minutes of staring at this to catch that. She's quite brilliant herself, but never so quick on the uptake as you are."

Liara felt herself blush slightly. "You're too kind."

"Hardly, it's a simple fact. This technological marvel-and it is a marvel, as I'm sure you've already figured out, micro-generators capable of producing this level of power will revolutionize any number of aspects of asari society, from commercial to industrial to military- is only half the reason I wanted to speak to you. I am aware that we have still yet to accomplish our biggest goals here at this site, but we draw closer every day. That, and all the discoveries we have already made, would not have been possible without you here."

Liara blushed more intensely, the scales on her face flaring as blood rushed into them. She found it hard to look directly at the team lead, and not just because she was unused to being paid compliments; the near-luminous white of the walls made it hard to focus on anything.

Dr. Mainus continued without waiting for a response, as was her wont. "There was the affair with the control panel two months ago, of course, where you made the continued study of Site Biru possible at all. But it's more than that. Every discovery since, major or minor, every sample we have found, you have taken the lead on. Kashissu may have discovered that office, but I am fully aware you were the one who actually got through the door. Dr. T'Soni, I do not think it any exaggeration to say that you are the most naturally talented archaeologist and historian I have met in three centuries, even more so in view of your youth."

"I- thank you," Liara mumbled. Dr. Mainus eyed her critically.

"That isn't to say you're perfect, of course. You really do need to gain some confidence, girl. I pay a few simple compliments to your work, and you look like you want to melt into a hole in the floor. It won't do. You will need to project a much more confident air in front of your students in future. You'll also need to publish on a much more frequent basis. I was startled to see how few articles in major journals have your name on them. We expect our professors to be prolific writers."

"I _am_ a prolific writer, Dr. Mainus. It's just that the major journals such as _Archaeology Today_ and _Historical Review_ tend to reject everything I send them, usually without comment. The last time I received a reason for a rejection, I was told that my theories regarding the Prothean extinction were absurd. I have to settle for less prestigious journals, such as the-," Liara blinked as the full import of Dr. Mainus' last sentence hit her. "Excuse me, but I do not believe I am one of your professors."

"I would like to change that, Dr. T'Soni. You are an adjunct professor at the University of Serrice, on a yearly contract, grossly underpaid for the research you do. You also did both your undergraduate and graduate work at Serrice, I believe." Dr. Mainus tsked. "Academic inbreeding. You really should have applied elsewhere once you finished your doctorate. I have no doubt that played a part in journals rejecting you. In any case, in addition to being the team lead on this expedition, I am also the head of the Prothean Studies Department at the University of Nyxedrase. I would like to offer you a full, tenure-track, professorship, beginning next semester, in my department."

Liara couldn't speak. She _had_ applied at other universities in asari space on completing her doctorate, but her dissertation and every article she had published to that point had all been so controversial, that coupled with her extreme youth (she had only been seventy-four at the time), every application had been rejected. Dr. Alene Passante, the head of the Archaeology Department at Serrice, her advisor since undergrad, and one of her very few friends, had very kindly offered her an adjunct position, "until someplace else finally gives you a chance."

She'd spent thirty-two years waiting for that chance. Now, it seemed, it had finally arrived.

"Thank you, I- thank you so much," she finally managed. "Of course I'd be delighted to accept. Will I- is there a formal interview process I'll need to go through, or-?"

"No, nothing of the sort," Dr. Mainus waved the question away. "Interviews are to determine if a candidate is suitable for a position. Consider the past two months in the field with us your interview. You'll only need to fill out some basic paperwork. Under normal circumstances I'd warn of culture shock: we're a relatively small private school on a colony world, quite a change from a massive research institution in the second-largest city on the homeworld. But given how much time you spend on remote planets as it is, I'd guess that it won't be much of an adjustment for you."

Liara again attempted to stammer her thanks, and Dr. Mainus again overrode her. "I do believe we'll need to arrange a public speaking course for you over the summer or something, girl. On a more mundane note, I haven't had anything to eat since I came down here except two protein bars, which I am heartily sick of eating by now. I sent Dr. Shila some hours ago to the human camp to try and get some fresh food. Had she arrived when you left?"

"No, Doctor. In fact, I attempted to get in contact with her via my omnitool just before I left and got nothing. The wind had shifted direction and was dumping ash everywhere, so it probably blocked the signal."

"I see. The wind has been constantly changing over the past couple days, probably an indicator of the oncoming acid rain season on this goddess-forsaken planet or some such." Liara shuddered at the thought. _Why_ couldn't the Protheans have built this complex somewhere more pleasant?

"In all likelihood the wind has again shifted in the time we've been down here talking," Dr. Mainus continued. "If that's the case, we'll be able to call the camp as soon as we get to the surface, and see if Dr. Shila has returned with our fresh fruits and vegetables. Come."

Together, the two of them left the glaring white structure of Site Biru behind and headed toward the surface. As they walked, they discussed possible routes to take in the ongoing exploration of the complex, the possible meaning behind the distribution of ruins such as Site Eshfinea, and other minor details. Liara barely heard any of it, more or less letting her mouth run on autopilot. Her mind was buzzing with excitement.

Dr. Mainus slowed as they reached the exit of the mine shaft and checked the environmental readout by the door. "Good, the wind has changed direction. Truth be told, I'd be stuck in here otherwise, you've got the only breath mask." The team lead hit the button, and the heavy door of the mine groaned and rolled aside.

The sight that met their eyes would've stunned Liara if she hadn't already seen its like several times in the past two months. The ash had indeed stopped falling, but the past hour or so had left the ground choked with almost seven inches of gray powder. It was like snow, but more slippery, and much hotter. The journey back to camp would take even longer with this.

Dr. Mainus surveyed the scene. "Moaning about this won't make it go away. While we walk, you'd best try to get in contact with Dr. Shila. It should work now, and I hope she managed to get some of those human fruits, what are they called? Peaches? I do love peaches." She set off in the direction of the camp, Liara following and activating her omnitool.

Looking back on the day years later, Liara would mark this as the moment where everything truly began to go wrong.

Valira did not answer the call. Liara frowned, and dialed again.

Still nothing.

 _Why is she not picking up? There's no more ashfall, and she's surely back from the human camp by now, there's nobody she could be in an urgent discussion with._

"Dr. Mainus?" Liara quickened her pace to move up beside the team lead.

"Yes, Dr. T'Soni?"

"Valira still isn't picking up. I just tried twice, and got nothing."

Dr. Mainus frowned. "Are you sure your omnitool is working properly?"

"Yes, I am." Just as she had when Glari asked the same question, Liara ran a diagnostic just to be sure. Again it came back clean. "Dr. Mainus, there's something I feel we need to begin considering. We may be under attack."

"Dr. T'Soni, I am aware that you have been involved in a few scuffles on your solo digs, but surely-,"

"We are on an isolated human frontier world, dangerously close to their border with both the Terminus Systems and the Batarian Hegemony. That alone makes this a prime target for pirates or slavers. In addition, it is a matter of public knowledge at this point that we are working on a Prothean dig site. Prothean artifacts fetch an extremely high price on the black market, and several times in the past I have had to fend off scavengers attempting to take relics off my corpse. I had thought the ash responsible for this, but with the atmosphere clean between both camps and here, that is no longer a valid excuse. We cannot afford to dismiss this possibility any longer."

They had not stopped walking toward the camp, and as they approached the bend in the trail beyond which their own tent would be visible, Liara saw a flicker of doubt pass across Dr. Mainus' stern face. "If what you say is true, then why have these slavers or pirates not already attacked us? The most valuable Prothean site is here."

"They'd be picking off outliers. Making sure nothing escaped their net before they moved on the main site. There's several other ruins in this region, like Site Eshfinea… Oh Goddess." Liara felt dread settle in the pit of her stomach.

She dialed Kashissu.

And just as the omnitool buzzed for the third time, and Liara heard the prerecorded message of Kashissu's voicemail, she and Dr. Mainus rounded the bend.

Below them, where their camp had stood an hour before, there was only wreckage. The smaller tents that they used to conduct experiments and analysis had been reduced to flaming heaps by the slavers, as had their living quarters. In fact, there were several of them clustered in front of what had been Liara's home for the last two months, inspecting…

Wait.

No.

Not batarians.

At least five synthetics of a kind Liara had never seen before were grouped in front of the ruins of the expedition's tent, four standing, the fifth on its metal knees, inspecting what even from here Liara could identify as the body of Dr. Glari Aveos.

There were several more of the synthetics scattered around the campsite, but what drew Liara's eye even more than the hostile robots were the two krogan standing in the exact center of the site, directing operations.

One was on the small side for a krogan, only around seven feet tall or thereabouts. The other was massive, almost nine feet, in ornate armor, directing the synthetics with sharp motions of his hands. A battlemaster.

Liara took all this in in seconds.

And as her hands flew to her waist, fumbling for her pistol, knowing it would be nearly useless against the overwhelming force below her, the battlemaster seemed to sniff the air. He looked up the slope, his yellow eyes meeting hers, and despite the furnace heat of Therum, Liara felt her blood run cold.

She seized Dr. Mainus roughly around the shoulders with the arm not holding her Predator and wrestled her back around the corner. The stunned team lead didn't resist, her face twisted in terror. As comfortable as Dr. Mainus was doing research, she had never faced a life or death situation like this before.

Bullets whistled around the corner, streaks of white light accompanied by a staccato _pac-pac-pac-pac_ report unlike that of any weapon Liara had ever heard. She leaned in close to Dr. Mainus' face. " _We have to run! Back into the mine! NOW!_ " She nearly had to scream, even with their faces only separated by inches, to be heard over the noise. " _Do you understand me?!_ "

Shakily, the team lead nodded.

Liara shoved her to her feet. " _Then GO!_ "

The trip from the mine had taken almost twenty minutes at a walk, slogging their way through the ash. It took them seven minutes to make it back at a full sprint, their legs boosted by terror and adrenaline.

Liara might've made it even faster on her own. She was a natural runner, and she kept in top shape, exercising whenever she had a chance. But she stayed in the rear, holding up a biotic barrier with her off hand as she ran to shield them both from the synthetics that had turned the corner behind them and were spraying fire in their direction. It didn't matter how exhausted she'd be in another hour. She had to survive that long first.

The two of them barreled up the ramp to the entrance of the mine. Dr. Mainus reached the keypad controlling the door and began to enter the access code. Liara whirled and fired on the lead synthetics, perhaps fifty meters away. Behind them, she could see the silhouettes of the two krogan, lumbering towards her and Dr. Mainus with more synthetics following them.

Her first two shots hit the lead synthetic center of mass, dropping its shields.

Her third drilled right through the spotlight that formed its face in a spray of white conductive fluid, sending it to the ground in a heap.

Behind her, Dr. Mainus finished entering the access code, and the heavy door of the mine rolled aside. Liara ducked inside, taking cover behind the doorjamb.

And as Liara leaned out to provide more covering fire, Dr. Ishinathea Mainus died.

Three bullets hit her. The first tore through her upper arm, a minor flesh wound in most cases.

The second exploded through her lower abdomen, carrying bits of fragmented bone and intestine out with it.

The third punched through her neck, entering through her spine and pulping her trachea and carotid artery before exiting through her throat in a rush of indigo blood. She was dead before she hit the ground.

Liara screamed. She had fought before, and killed before, but she had never before seen a friend die _. A friend?_ Dr. Mainus had been kind, fair, and willing to give her a chance. What else was she if not a friend?

Friend or not, Dr. Mainus was very obviously dead. Liara could do nothing for her. She turned and sprinted down the tunnel into the entrance of the mine proper, taking cover again behind a large stalagmite.

In front of her, the tunnel leading back to the surface formed a perfect chokepoint and defensive position. Behind her, the catwalk turned sharply to the right, leading to the lift. Beyond the catwalk, there was only empty air, yawning over the floor of the cavern a hundred feet below.

Liara heard noises at the entrance of the tunnel—the synthetics had obviously reached it. She blindly fired four more shots up toward the surface, then dropped the hissing heat sink and slotted her second one in.

In answer, a rocket blazed down the tunnel, accompanied by a storm of weapons fire. It missed by a good meter and a half, spiraling across the void and smashing into the far wall of the cavern, but Liara still flinched behind her stalagmite. As if she needed more of a reminder of how outgunned she was. Even with the chokepoint formed by the tunnel, she could not hope to fight off the synthetics and their krogan masters.

She had to retreat deeper into Site Biru. An idea popped into her head. The barrier curtain, the one she had used to deter the human miners two months before. Surely it could keep out these foes as well, buy her time to think of a way to escape.

But how to get there? The control panel was at the very bottom level. She dared not take the elevator, she would be a sitting target as the clanky cage descended. She might jump, using her biotics to lower her mass to that of a feather and float down, but she'd never tried it from such a height before.

As Liara frantically weighed her options, a grenade clattered down the tunnel. _Oh no_. She crouched behind her stalagmite, trying to make herself as small as possible, but the grenade did not explode.

Instead, it gave a sharp _pop_ , and billowing clouds of gray smoke began to issue from it. Liara would have preferred a frag grenade; she could now expect to be engaging synthetics in hand to hand combat sometime in the next thirty seconds.

Thinking fast, she stepped back, thrusting her left arm at the center of the smoke cloud and twisting her forearm in a control gesture she rarely had occasion to use. Her biotics responded, grasping hold of the fabric of space itself and folding it into a _singularity_.

A brilliant blue glow illuminated the gray smoke as her miniature black hole took shape. Liara could hear the surprised robotic warbling of at least three synthetics caught in its grasp, and see their forms floating around the _singularity_. She thrust her arm forward again, and flung a _warp_ into the mist at her _singularity._

The resulting detonation in the confined space was so powerful that it knocked Liara back on her ass and set her aural cavities ringing. She could faintly hear the sound of shredded metal and lubricating fluid spattering over the tunnel floor. And over that, she could distinctly hear the sound of an enraged krogan roaring.

 _Oh no no_.

A black shape rapidly formed behind the smoke cloud, then the smaller krogan burst from it, head lowered and charging at her. His skin was covered in burns from the detonation of her _singularity_ , and he oddly did not have a weapon (maybe the blast had destroyed it?) but none of that really mattered. Even an unarmed krogan could easily tear her limb from limb.

Still sitting down, Liara screamed in rank terror as the blood raging krogan bore down on her. She flung her arm up in the most basic of control gestures—that of _pull_.

The krogan's roar changed to surprise as his feet left the ground and he sailed over Liara's head, out over the void. Scrambling to her feet, Liara raised her pistol and emptied all seven rounds of the thermal clip into the floating krogan's head.

For any other species, that would've easily been enough. Just to be sure, she slashed her right arm down, and sent the wounded krogan rocketing down toward the cavern floor, faster by far than gravity alone would've done. That threat neutralized, she scrambled back behind her stalagmite and waited for the next assault.

It didn't come. Liara could hear the synthetics clearly, metallic footsteps and electronic warbling from further up the tunnel. No more rockets or gunfire came down the tunnel, though.

What did come was a deep bass, rumbling krogan voice, drifting down to her.

"Dr. Liara T'Soni."

She had not thought it possible to be more terrified than she already was. She had been wrong.

"How do you know my name?" She shouldn't have engaged it- him- in conversation. But the shock of this murdering brute somehow knowing her name piqued her curiosity at the worst time.

"We were sent here to find you, Doctor. You, specifically. All the humans and the other asari didn't matter. I could do with them as I wanted. But Saren Arterius needs you to help him find something."

This made no sense whatsoever. "Who is this Saren? What is this thing he wants me to find? Why me? And if you want me to help you, why are you firing rockets at me?!"

The krogan battlemaster's voice replied. "Saren is a Spectre, little asari. He wants you to help him find a Prothean ruin, called the Conduit. You come highly recommended, by someone very familiar with your abilities as a scientist. As for the rockets…" The krogan's voice became even more menacing, somehow. "You only need your head to help Saren. If your legs are gone, maybe you'll stop running from us."

Liara did not feel like losing her legs.

There was only one option. She could not stay in her present position one moment longer. She had to reach the control panel and trigger the barrier curtain, and she could not take the human elevator.

She turned and dashed out from behind the stalagmite, somehow outpacing the storm of synthetic gunfire that came as she crossed the mouth of the tunnel. Liara crossed the catwalk in three steps, hurdled the railing, and flung herself out into empty air.

As she did so, she summoned her biotics, turning them not outward toward a foe, but inward, willing her mass to decrease. A feeling of incredible lightness overtook her, spreading from her core to the tips of her extremities, and she gracefully drifted down the hundred plus feet to the cavern floor.

As her feet touched the rock, she released her biotics, and weight suddenly returned to her, sending her staggering. She quickly recovered her balance, and sprinted past the splattered remains of the smaller krogan, up the catwalk one level, and into Site Biru.

Liara could already hear the human made elevator clanking into motion up above. Beginning to panic, she dashed through the white chamber where she and the rest of the research team had stared down the humans an eternity ago into the Prothean elevator shaft.

The elevator was a level below at the moment, currently resting on the foundations of Site Biru. She ran along the rim of the shaft toward the waiting control panel. Its holographic interface flared into life as she approached.

Liara stared at the keypad, the edges of her mind fuzzy with fear, trying to remember the combination that had triggered the barrier curtain two months before.

She prodded the middle key on the far left column.

It chimed and turned yellow.

She pressed the second key from the bottom on the second column from the right.

It chimed and turned yellow.

Liara could hear the clanking of the human elevator growing louder, echoing through the nearest chamber. She could not remember which key came next. _Whichisitwhichisit_ …

She pressed the top key on the second column from the right.

Instantly, the whole keypad turned a bright, fiery orange. Liara could hear a tone reverberating throughout the shaft, growing louder and higher with every passing second. She could hear the _pop_ as the barrier curtain snapped into place around the exterior of the complex. She was safe from the krogan, his synthetics, and this Saren that he answered to.

But she could not move.

 _Ohnonononono_

Her legs snapped together, pinned by invisible forces. Her arms sprang out at right angles from the rest of her body, forming a T shape. Her feet floated four inches off the floor. She could not feel anything from the neck down all of a sudden. A glowing blue aura slowly coalesced around her torso and limbs.

And as the energy ball she was now encased in began to slowly float of its own accord towards the nearest chamber, Liara began to understand.

Why the Protheans had built this site on a hellish lava planet, where survival in the wilderness was impossible.

Why this section of the complex was built of a disorienting, stark white material that made it next to impossible to focus on anything, and was nearly impervious to damage.

Why there was no central computer mainframe that could be hacked, but only a single control panel, easily within reach in case of a riot, and that would immediately neutralize anyone without the proper passcode.

Why there were no central generators that could be taken out, shutting down the entire complex, but instead numerous redundant microgenerators for every chamber.

And as her energy ball floated into her cell, and a second barrier curtain sprang into existence over the entrance she'd just come in through, Liara T'Soni knew the purpose of Site Biru.

It was a prison.

And for the first time in fifty thousand years, it had a new inmate.

 **A/N:**

 **Well, Liara appears to be up shit creek without a paddle. Too bad there's not much chance of a devilishly handsome and badass space marine showing up to save the day anytime soon… ;)**

 **In all seriousness, this one was a doozy to write. It has to do several jobs. I've always wondered why the hell the Protheans would bother building anything on Therum, which couldn't exactly have been more tectonically stable 50k ago, so I decided to come up with a nice backstory for the ruins. This chapter also has to serve as the introduction for Liara, the great love of Shepard's life and a massively important character in this story. It needed to hit on what I see as the most salient aspects of her character when she's recruited in ME1: her shyness and terror of social interactions with anyone, her sheer innate brilliance, the experience in combat she's picked up over the years on her own, and the frustration her career in academia has brought her.**

 **And also, it needed to be better than Sharrukin's version.**

 **I hope you, the reader, will agree that it accomplishes all of these tasks.**


	8. Garrus I

_**2014 Hours AST, April 15, 2183**_

 _ **Vehicle Bay, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

Garrus could feel the shudder through the hull as the docking clamps disengaged. _Well, it's official. I am now stuck on this human ship._

He'd been onboard for only about forty five minutes, one of the very last crew (he supposed he was technically part of the crew now) to make it aboard. When the meeting in the human ambassador's office had broken up, Commander Shepard, his two human subordinates, the quarian, and the krogan had all headed straight for the _Normandy_. The humans all had things they needed to accomplish in order to get the ship underway as soon as possible. The quarian needed to get to the engine room and familiarize herself with her new duties, and Shepard had refused to let the krogan bounty hunter out of his sight. "Since you're part of my crew now, that means I'm liable for your actions," he'd said. "I'm not taking the risk of you eating some random passerby en route from here to the docking bay." The krogan had found that hilarious.

Garrus, on the other hand, had had errands he needed to run. First he'd had to return to his apartment on Kithoi Ward and shovel everything he thought he might need on an extended deep space deployment into a duffel bag—his armor, several changes of clothes, his Hierarchy standard issue Phaeston assault rifle and Krysae heavy sniper rifle (both of which had been borderline illegal for him to possess as a cop, and were very definitely illegal now that he'd quit the force), and a few other odds and ends. He'd barely been able to carry the overstuffed bag out of the apartment.

Somehow, he'd gotten the massive weight of all that kit to the _Normandy_ , and presented it to the female human Marine who'd been present with Commander Shepard in the human ambassador's office, who apparently had charge of the armory aboard the ship.

Garrus's mandibles flickered in a brief smile as he recalled the woman's reaction. Ashley Williams, that was her name.

"This is a sniper rifle?" she'd said disbelievingly, hefting the Krysae. "The mass accelerator coils on this are no longer than my assault rifle's! How are you going to get enough range or accuracy?"

"They may be shorter than most sniper rifles, but they're much more powerful," he'd replied, taking the gun back from Williams. "This was specifically designed after Shanxi to knock holes in your human armored vehicles. I'd wager I could take out the one you have here in this bay with two well placed rounds." Her face had darkened with anger at the mention of the Relay 314 Incident, or the First Contact War as her people called it.

Ignoring that, he'd continued. "And of course that's only half of its features. I can switch its ammunition load into high explosive with just a flick of my thumb. Essentially turns it into a semi-automatic grenade launcher. Excellent for dealing with groups of hostiles."

"So CSec hands this thing out to all their officers, is that it?"

"Oh, if they did that, I'd never have left. No, this is issued only to designated sharpshooters in the Hierarchy's Special Forces. For a variety of reasons that we need not go into at this time, I was allowed to keep mine when I discharged, along with my AR. Kept it stuffed in my closet in my apartment during my time in CSec, since I wasn't exactly allowed to take it into the station with me."

He'd handed it back to her, and watched her stow it, along with his Phaeston and his armor, in a locker that she then marked _Vakarian G._

He'd then turned right back around and headed back out into the Citadel for his second errand, which was easily as important as the first one. He had to go grocery shopping.

Finding something to eat was never easy for turians. Their bodies were built at the most basic level from right-handed, or dextro, amino acids. Any food they consumed also needed to be built from dextro amino acids, or they would get no nutrition from it at best and go into anaphylactic shock at worst. Of the Citadel races, the turians were the only dextro species. The asari, the salarians, the elcor, the volus, all of them were built from left-handed, or levo, proteins, and Citadel stores and restaurants stocked accordingly.

Humans were a levo species as well, and the galley of the frigate he was going to be serving on catered exclusively to them. Of the three nonhumans that Commander Shepard had brought aboard, the krogan was also a levo, and could eat human food (though he'd undoubtedly eat a lot more of it than a human would). Garrus, however, could not.

Nor could the young quarian girl, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya; quarians were the only other known sapient dextro species in the galaxy besides turians, and on top of the protein chirality issue their food also needed to be carefully sterilized before they ingested it. Tali'Zorah had long since disappeared into the engineering compartment when he'd shown up with his kit, and wasn't likely to emerge anytime soon as the drive core was spun up in preparation for getting underway. Garrus doubted she'd have been allowed into any of the few dextro stores in the vicinity of the docking bay in any case.

So it had fallen to him to do the grocery shopping for the both of them. He'd purchased enough fresh and frozen food to last about a month. The final tally had been nearly a thousand credits, all straight out of his own bank account. _And you better believe Miss Zorah is going to be paying me back for her share by the time all this is done._

If his personal kit had been heavy, that had been backbreaking. He couldn't take a shopping cart off the store's premises, and he couldn't put it all in a taxi, so he'd crammed as much of the food as he could into the duffel bag he'd had the foresight to empty of his clothes and bring with him to the store. The rest he'd carried in his hands, all the way back to the docking bay on foot. He'd staggered back to the _Normandy_ carrying something like two hundred and thirty kilos.

Only when he'd emerged from the pantry and walk-in refrigerator areas of the galley, having helped the cooks put in the food in its own special area marked with black and yellow masking tape, had he gone in search of Commander Shepard.

Garrus had been hearing rumors about this ship for some time; it was supposedly a joint project between humanity and his own people to bring about closer ties of brotherhood and comradeship or some such silliness. He hadn't really paid much attention to the rumors. But the moment he'd first laid eyes on the SSV _Normandy_ , he'd known they were true. Both on the outside and the inside, it was laid out like a turian vessel.

Because of that, he'd known exactly where to find the ship's captain as the ship made ready for departure.

The Normandy's Combat Information Center was located on the uppermost of its three decks, with a raised podium overlooking a holographic projection of the galaxy in the precise center. Surrounding the map were various consoles manned by junior officers and crewmen. It was nearly identical to the CIC of the frigate Garrus had served on briefly in the Hierarchy Navy.

Commander Shepard was deep in conversation with one of his officers, a balding man with gray hair rimming his mouth and chin, when Garrus arrived in the CIC. He stopped at a respectful distance and waited for the conversation to play out.

"You're sure that's the fastest we can expect to get to Therum?" Shepard was saying.

"I'm positive, Commander," the balding man replied. "There's a fair few relays we have to get through before Artemis Tau, but the real problem is the conventional FTL journey. Knossos is at least three days flight time from the cluster's relay in the Sparta system, and that's if we don't run into to any deep space anomalies like radiation storms that force us to reroute our flight path."

"Then I guess there's no help for it," Shepard replied. "Is the ship almost ready for departure?"

"Aye, Commander. All crew are aboard, and we've been requisitioning and storing supplies for a lengthy deployment from the Alliance depot here since the moment we docked. It was a good thing we made the stop here, we went on shakedown missing all sorts of vital things for combat patrol, like anti-ship torpedoes. We can be in space in thirty minutes or so, all that's left are the final checks."

"Alright then." It was at that moment that Commander Shepard had noticed Garrus standing quietly in the background, and beckoned him forward. "Vakarian. You want to say something?"

Garrus had coughed uncomfortably into his hand. "Garrus, please. And yes, actually. It occurred to me that if Tali needs to earn her way aboard this vessel outside of just ground combat, it's only fair that I do as well. I came to ask if there's any area aboard that I might be able to help out with while we're on deployment."

The balding man spoke quickly. "That's generous of you, but our current personnel are more than adequate for our needs."

Shepard looked oddly at the other man. "You told me not five minutes ago that we don't have anyone aboard qualified to maintain the Mako, Pressly." He looked back at Garrus. "Garrus, this is Lieutenant Charles Pressly. Used to be the navigator, he's taking over my XO spot. Do you think you can work on an M35 Mako APC?"

Garrus had seen the armored vehicle in the hangar bay when he'd handed his equipment over to Gunnery Sergeant Williams, though he hadn't recognized the model. He had shrugged. "I've had some experience working on turian vehicles. Can't imagine yours is too different."

"Can you manage most of the checks without me?" Commander Shepard asked Pressly. When the XO reluctantly nodded, Shepard turned back to Garrus. "Come on, I'll walk you down there and give you the basics."

And that was how Garrus, thirty-four minutes later, had found himself struggling to calibrate the APC's obstinate main cannon.

It was infuriating. Turian APCs, which Garrus had trained on, had similar guns, but the projectiles were loaded by hand. Autoloaders were faster, but more prone to jamming, and the extra mechanisms had a tendency to interfere with the accuracy of the weapon itself.

Humanity, relatively new to interstellar warfare and mass accelerator weaponry, apparently had yet to learn the many ways an autoloader's vibrations could misalign the pulse frequencies of mass accelerator coils.

So now he was stuck fixing their vehicle for them, and the manual was no help at all _. I could've been reading a book. Or taking a nap. But no, I had to be helpful._

The vibrations emanating from the drive core steadily increased at the edge of Garrus's hearing, and he felt the subtle vertigo of the momentum dampeners as the human frigate swung out of its docking cradle and pointed its nose toward the stars. Those sensations, unlike the APC, were very familiar to Garrus, as they were to anyone who'd ever spent any time aboard a starship.

He ignored them. As glad as Garrus was to be leaving the Citadel for the first time in years, and as surreal as it was to be doing so aboard a human warship, his new job was demanding every iota of his attention.

He cursed and hastily drew back his hand as electricity arced across the gun mounting. _Spirits! The turret motor is also connected to the autoloader?_ That hadn't been mentioned anywhere in the manual, like seemingly every other one of the Mako's little quirks. Garrus had only been working on the thing for half an hour, and he was already getting heartily sick of it.

Still, he couldn't exactly quit. Not just because he'd volunteered, either.

In three days' time, give or take a few hours, the _Normandy_ would be arriving at the human colony of Therum in search of Liara T'Soni, the daughter of Saren's accomplice and their only real lead at the moment in the search for the traitor Spectre.

The research grants and excavation permissions the asari team had been given narrowed the area they'd have to search for Dr. T'Soni down to about a 400 square kilometer grid, containing at least five major and a dozen minor Prothean sites. It was entirely possible they'd have to search every single one of them for her on the ground.

And that wasn't even taking into account the possible disposition of the good doctor. It was entirely possible that she knew nothing whatsoever of her mother or Saren, and that this trip would turn out to be a waste of time.

It was also possible that she was Saren's and Benezia's willing accomplice, and that she would be guarded by a battalion of geth, and that the ground team would have to fight their way to her location. She might've already left by the time they arrived, and set up an ambush for them as a parting gift.

All of which meant that the Mako would need to be in perfect condition by the time the _Normandy_ arrived in the Knossos system. The lives of the ground team would be riding on the condition of the APC, Garrus's included. He would make sure of that. As the one working on the thing, it was his responsibility to be one of the ones to test it under fire for the first time.

It took Garrus another three hours to get the main cannon, autoloader and all, calibrated to his satisfaction. He would've done it in half that, except that the slight shudder of the transit through the relay out of Widow had been enough to knock his elbow into the lever for the Mako's jump jets. Which in turn had jumped the APC six feet off the hangar floor and slammed his head into the autoloader.

One day he would find the human engineer that had come up with this thing and run him over with his own creation. Assuming the steering column didn't glitch and send him flying off a cliff first, of course.

Calibrations had never been one of Garrus's favorite things to do.

But whether he liked them or not, he knew that his foreseeable future was filled with them.

 _ **1500 Hours AST, April 17, 2183**_

 _ **Galley, Crew Deck, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Interstellar Space, Artemis Tau Cluster**_

Garrus carried his lunch out of the refrigerator and laid it on the countertop of the food preparation area, which he'd already washed down to get rid of any remnants of human food. It wasn't much, two small kiflix cutlets and a panja fruit, but it nevertheless smelled heavenly to him. He'd only eaten twice since the _Normandy_ had left the Citadel almost two days before.

The troubles he'd had with the Mako's cannon had only been the beginning, and frankly, they'd been the easiest part. The principles of a mass accelerator weapon, no matter its size and no matter how idiosyncratic its loading system, were familiar enough to him that he'd been able to figure it out relatively quickly.

The rest of the APC was a different story. He'd spent the better part of seven hours the previous day working over the power plant, and when he'd finally figured it out it had been another three inspecting the armor plating.

Today, he'd been looking over the shield emitters and the jump jets. He hadn't accidentally tripped them again, thank the Spirits, but they still had to be precisely calibrated to provide just the right amount of thrust to counter the expected gravity of Therum, since the ground team would insert onto the planet via dropping in the APC.

Garrus still had plenty of work on that to do, truth be told, but finally the growling of his stomach had become too much to ignore. So he'd made his way up here.

The human frigate's galley was small and cramped, as was to be expected on a ship this size. Where a larger vessel might have had an expansive kitchen and separate cafeteria, here the food preparation area was scarcely bigger than the kitchen in the average apartment on the Citadel, and directly fronted on two average size tables, with four chairs each.

There were only two occupants of those chairs at present time, both in the dark blue fatigues that the human Naval crewmen wore for casual duty (their Marines seemed to prefer green). Even that was unusual for this hour, so far as Garrus understood it. He kept his own schedule, but the humans operated on the basis of military routine: the day was divided into three shifts of eight hours each. Each human crewman was assigned one shift to work, and had the other two free for various other tasks and recreation. Meals were served at very specific times, calculated so that all three shifts would have access to three meals in their off duty hours.

The last meal had been served three hours earlier, and the two humans had no food in front of them, just mugs of the odd smelling black drink humans were fond of drinking when they needed to stay awake. Possibly members of the late night shift then, Garrus mused as he sliced his kiflix cutlets into neat cubes before placing them into a frying pan. Not that he could be sure either way.

He had been so busy over the last couple of days that he had not had any time to get to know any of the crew to any real extent. He knew Commander Shepard, of course, and the head of the Marine detachment, First Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko. Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Williams ran the armory (he'd seen her running checks on every weapon at one point on the other side of the hangar, and made a mental note to make sure she hadn't screwed up anything on his guns before Therum). The balding man from the CIC was the new XO, he remembered that.

Other than that, he couldn't have named any of the humans. He hadn't had the time to make the rounds and meet people, and they'd given the Mako and his sleeping area a wide berth.

Garrus dumped the sizzling meat from the pan onto a plate, drizzled some sauce on it, and took the plate over toward the table (he'd eaten the panja fruit with one hand while cooking the meat). The two human sailors didn't acknowledge his presence, except perhaps with a tightening of their jaws.

Garrus wasn't surprised. Shepard had warned him this might happen in their very first conversation. Even if he hadn't, he'd dealt with enough humans in his time in CSec to know the signs. Plenty of humans held grudges against his race for Shanxi, even a quarter century later.

Garrus could've resented them right back; he had more cause than most turians. His mother had sustained severe brain damage in the war when she'd been slammed helmetless into a concrete wall by an explosion, and had never truly recovered. In fact, her condition had degenerated into the earlier stages of Korpalis Syndrome in the last couple of years. Garrus was lucky if she knew his name when they met these days.

But none of these humans had been a part of that, and he wasn't generally one to engage in silly squabbles with random people over trivialities.

It wasn't as if the other nonhumans aboard were going out of their way to be friendly to him either, Garrus mused as he devoured his kiflix meat. The krogan, Urdnot Wrex, hadn't bothered to find useful employment aboard like Garrus or Tali had. He instead spent his time on the far side of the vehicle bay, close to the armory racks, cleaning his weapons (Gunnery Sergeant Williams very wisely had not attempted to take the krogan's guns) or sleeping, only leaving the area for meals where he devoured the portion of any three humans. No human had attempted to engage the krogan in conversation yet either, and in that case, like his own, Garrus understood the reason why perfectly.

Heck, he shared it. Krogans were good for one thing, massive violence. That was why this one had been brought along, not for his social skills.

Tali, on the other hand, had seemed like a nice enough kid from what he'd seen of her before the ship. He wouldn't have minded talking more to her.

The trouble was that almost two full days after the _Normandy_ had left the Citadel, he _still_ hadn't seen the young quarian emerge from the engineering compartment. He was beginning to wonder if the engineers had sacrificed her to the drive core in some sort of bizarre ritual. It could happen, he thought: turian engineers had been a weird breed, and he suspected human ones were much the same.

His mandibles parted in a slight grin, Garrus swallowed the last of his meal and thought about it more. In all seriousness, when he'd gone in the refrigerator to get his food, he hadn't seen anything missing other than what he'd eaten himself the past couple of days. Had the girl not been eating?

Garrus stood and walked back into the refrigerator, dumping his plate into the sink along the way. He leaned over the dextro food, inspecting it more closely. Aside from the food that he himself had eaten, he could now see that two more panja fruits had gone missing. Everything else that he'd bought on the Citadel was still there.

 _Two pieces of fruit over two days? That's it? The girl must be about to keel over!_

Well, he'd wanted to talk to her. This provided as good an excuse as any. And at the least it constituted proof that she hadn't been ritually sacrificed.

Garrus grabbed another piece of fruit and a yogurt cup and made for the elevator, then stopped.

Spirits, he'd almost forgotten. Quarian food had to be sterilized, then pureed before they could eat it. It wasn't that they couldn't eat solid objects, they just had to get them through their enviro suits.

Garrus turned back to the kitchen and dumped the panja fruit and the yogurt into a food processor. He paused, then added some vegetables and a second yogurt cup. The resulting mixture he poured into a cup and stuck a straw in, before heading toward the elevator.

He emerged in the vehicle bay, which, as usual, was mostly empty. The Marine detachment had their own small ready room off the corridor leading to Engineering, and unless they were needed for something, spent all their time there. The Naval crewmen confined themselves to Engineering and the upper two decks. The only other person in the bay at the moment was the krogan, who ignored him. Garrus returned the favor.

Instead of heading towards the Mako and his own personal space on the right side of the bay, Garrus turned around and headed through the doors behind the elevator that he knew vaguely led in the direction of Engineering.

This was the first time he'd actually been in this part of the ship. It was somehow more claustrophobic than the upper decks and hangar, and he might've been worried about getting lost if there hadn't been large blinking signs literally pointing the way to the drive core. Plus he could hear the hum of the thing as he got closer.

He arrived at the door marked _Main Engineering_. Pausing to shift the smoothie to his left hand, Garrus reached for the door control…

Only to have it hiss open in his face. Standing in the gap was a human in Navy fatigues with lieutenant's bars across the shoulders, looking as surprised as Garrus felt.

Garrus recovered first. "Is Tali in here?"

A look of relief spread across the human's face. "Oh yes, she is. I've been trying to get in touch with Commander Shepard for hours now about her but he hasn't been answering. I thought he'd just been ignoring me, I was about to go looking for him in person."

 _This doesn't sound good_. "Is she in trouble or something? I only came down here because I noticed she hasn't been eating."

The human seemed to notice the smoothie in Garrus' hand for the first time. His face sagged. "You mean the Commander didn't send you? I thought maybe he'd decided that a fellow nonhuman might be better at handling this…. No, she's not in trouble. Not exactly. But she will be if she doesn't stop soon. I'm Lieutenant Adams, Engineering Department Head, and I- why don't you come see for yourself." He turned and led the way into the engineering compartment. Puzzled, Garrus followed.

The compartment essentially consisted of an open space twice as large as the vehicle bay. At one end, the one Garrus had just entered, a large platform extended out towards the drive core itself, which dominated the rest of the space. Both walls and the railing along the edge of the platform were covered in consoles.

Tali stood at one of the consoles along the railing, her hands flickering over it. She was the only one in the compartment actually working; all the humans were arrayed some distance from her in a rough semicircle, watching her with similar expressions of concern on their faces. She did not appear to have noticed any of them.

Garrus turned to Lieutenant Adams. "I don't understand what's going on here. Has she done something wrong? Shepard told her to work hard and follow your orders, has she not done that?"

"She has. Followed all my orders to the letter except one: the one where I told her to come off shift and stop working." The human engineer took off his cap, ran his fingers through his hair, and sighed. "She's brilliant. Already in the past two days she's proven herself more ingenious than any graduate of the Alliance Navy's technical schools I've ever seen, and on a brand new prototype engine that she's had zero experience or training on, no less. Engine's running at 113% of its projected performance coming out of the yard right now thanks to her."

Adams put his cap back on. "But she has not moved from that console there since she came in this room, except when I order her to do something at a different console. She hasn't left this room to sleep or eat. I had to send a crewman yesterday to get her something, which she didn't touch. I don't think she even noticed. I've been trying to get the Commander to come down here, maybe she'll listen to him. She's no use to us if she collapses, which she's got to be getting close to at this point."

Garrus looked at the quarian. Now that he listened closely, he could hear her muttering to herself.

"… have to rebalance the coefficents on the tertiary power feed to do that, it shouldn't alter the shield harmonics noticeably, but what if it interferes with the stealth systems? I don't understand the stealth systems enough yet. Nonono, have to find another way, maybe if I-"

Garrus looked back at Adams. "Oh dear."

The human engineer nodded. "The crazy thing is that she seems to have been getting even more efficient and effective in the last few hours, making upgrades and tweaks on half of our systems. If I was heartless I'd just keep her in there to see what else I could squeeze out of her before she dropped, but I'm not. She needs rest. Listen, even if the Commander didn't send you, could you-?"

Garrus nodded instantly. "Of course."

He strode forward until he was a few feet behind Tali, who didn't notice his approach. He put the smoothie down on a neighboring console, considered for a moment, and reached out and rapped the side of her helmet with his knuckles.

She yelped as if she'd been shocked and whirled around. As ever, her eyes were the only part of her face visible behind her faceplate. They looked around wildly. "I've got this under control, Adams! I promise! I just need some X23 power converters out of storage. You said we had some, right, if we do I can get our shields to draw .32 less from the core under bombardment and also-,"

"Tali!" Garrus waved his hand in front of her face. With seeming difficulty, her glowing silver eyes focused on him.

"Oh! You're, um, Garrus, right?" He slowly nodded. "Do you have my power converters?"

He shook his head. With a frustrated noise, Tali made to turn back to her console. Garrus put his hand on her arm and gently turned her back to face him. "Tali. Nobody is getting you power converters or anything else until you've gotten a rest. You need to stop working."

"What? No! No, I can't! I just got here, and there's so much I need to do, and I told Commander Shepard that I'd earn my place and I wouldn't be a burden and I really need to keep working-,"

"You also told the Commander that you'd obey every order that Lieutenant Adams gave you," Garrus interrupted. "I know, I was there. And Adams told me that he's ordered you to come off duty, and you haven't done it. He was actually on his way out of the compartment to fetch Shepard when I came in here."

Tali visibly flinched. "But I'm fine, really, I am, I've only been here a few hours, I can keep up with everyone!" _Has she really lost track of that much time?_

"It hasn't been just a few hours, Tali. It's been almost two full days. And it's not your decision to make. I know this is your first time aboard a military vessel, so let me make it clear to you: when your superior tells you to stop working, you stop. You're going to turn off your console, you're going to come with me and drink the smoothie I made you, and then you're going to sleep. Or I'm going to get the Commander."

The quarian girl wilted. "But I-,"

"No buts." Garrus picked up the smoothie from the console where he'd set it down and offered it to Tali. "Fruit, vegetables, and yogurt. Enjoy." She accepted it gingerly. "Now, come on. You can eat that in the vehicle bay. You can use my cot too, I don't see one around here for you."

He gestured for her to go first. Giving her console one last longing look, she reluctantly did so. As they exited the Engineering room, they passed Lieutenant Adams, who once more had a look of relief across his face.

"Thanks, Vakarian. And as for you," he said, looking at Tali, "don't come back in here until you've had at least eight hours of sleep. I don't need you making a mistake from exhaustion and overloading the core." He was obviously trying to sound stern, and obviously failing; Garrus could tell that this man was not one to be remotely harsh on his subordinates.

Tali mumbled her acknowledgement around the straw she had already inserted through a slot in her helmet, and began to walk unsteadily toward the exit. Garrus followed closely, ready to catch her if she keeled over suddenly.

She made it into the vehicle bay without incident, though, and went to Garrus' work area next to the Mako. He indicated a space for her to sit at his workbench, which she promptly occupied. He remained standing, leaning against the APC.

Neither of them spoke for several moments, her slurping noisily at the smoothie, him looking idly about the vehicle bay. On the other side, Ashley Williams was emerging, yawning, from the Marine room to begin her shift in the armory.

Finally, Tali removed the straw from her helmet. "How long did you say I'd been in there?"

"Just under two days." Garrus inspected one of the talons on his right hand.

"Keelah." He could hear the disbelief in her voice. "I don't feel tired at all."

"That's because you're running on adrenaline. It'll catch up with you as soon as you start relaxing a little." He looked at her closely, his avian eyes meeting her glowing silver ones through her faceplate. "And you really need to do that. The past several days have been incredibly hectic for you, from what I understand. Not just on this ship, but getting chased all over the Citadel by armed gunmen. It's a wonder you're still able to function after all of that."

Tali nodded, and Garrus continued. "Didn't you say you'd had military training in the Migrant Fleet?" She nodded again.

"Didn't they teach you to take care of yourself and rest?"

Tali shook her head. "No. They taught me to endure fatigue and push through. I feel like I can keep going for ages." He could hear a faint note of pride in her voice.

"I begin to understand why the Quarian Marines aren't especially feared," Garrus said flatly. He could feel the angry gaze coming at him from behind the faceplate. He returned it calmly. "Enduring fatigue is one thing in the field where you have no choice. It's quite another aboard a starship where you aren't under any immediate threat. Especially for an engineer. One careless mistake in that compartment can endanger the lives of the whole crew. I know enough about the Migrant Fleet to know that basic civilian life there should have taught you that at an early age. Forget the Marines."

Her silence and the fact that she could no longer hold his eyes told him everything he needed to know.

"I thought not. You knew you'd been working too long, even if you didn't know just how long it had been. You deliberately pushed yourself. Why?"

She remained silent, and Garrus sighed. "Whatever the reason, you need to know that you can't do that anymore. We need everyone at their best, all the time. Got it?"

He was answered by a light snore, as Tali's head lolled over onto her shoulder. She'd fallen asleep.

Garrus snorted and removed the half empty glass from her lap, where it was in danger of spilling. "Well, at least you weren't working on the engines when it happened. And I think I know the reason anyway."

 _ **2200 Hours AST, April 18, 2183**_

 _ **Vehicle Bay, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Knossos System, Artemis Tau Cluster**_

The wailing of a siren jolted Garrus abruptly awake. Piercingly loud, rising and falling in pitch, it stabbed at his eardrums.

He sat bolt upright in his cot and looked about the vehicle bay, trying to see what was going on.

The human Marines were rushing into the bay from their room and hurriedly changing into their armor. Urdnot Wrex never changed out of his—he was standing close to the elevator, his massive Claymore shotgun in his hands, his eyes alive with anticipation of battle.

There were no enemies to fight in FTL travel.

Which meant they'd dropped out of FTL into the Knossos system, and there were enemies there. Almost certainly geth. _Well, that settles the question of which side Dr. T'Soni is on, doesn't it?_ The alarm was general quarters, calling all the human Navy and Marine personnel to their action stations in anticipation of combat.

It was at this point that Garrus realized he did not have an action station. Tali would certainly stay in Engineering, that compartment would need all hands available during a naval combat scenario, but he could hardly stay with the Mako.

He looked at Urdnot Wrex and the Marines, readying for infantry combat. Shrugging, he moved quickly across the vehicle bay and began to buckle on the hard suit he hadn't worn in years. He _had_ been planning on going with the ground team, after all. And if they ended up getting spaced, the hardsuit would keep him alive for some time.

As he fitted his compacted Phaeston into its magnetic holster on his back, the alarm shut off, and Lieutenant Alenko approached him.

"Good to see you ready, Vakarian." Kaidan was already dressed in a suit of light armor and cradling a Tempest submachine gun. "Commander wants to see you in the CIC ASAP, along with Wrex."

"Did he say why?" Garrus checked the scope of his Krysae, and was gratified to see that it was still adjusted perfectly.

"No, and I didn't ask. You'd better get moving."

Garrus didn't need to be told a third time. He strode across the vehicle bay and entered the elevator alongside the massive krogan. With the two of them in there, both in their bulky armor, there was barely room to breathe.

Garrus did not look at the krogan, but kept his eyes fixed straight ahead on the door. It was difficult, especially since he could feel the brute's gaze boring into the side of his head, but he managed. It helped that the elevator ride took only a few seconds.

They got off on the crew deck and made their way into the CIC.

If the vehicle bay had been busier than normal, the CIC was packed. Every Naval crewman that wasn't in the Engineering compartment was here. On a larger ship, there would also have been a team in a separate fire control station for the main spinal cannon and damage control parties stationed in key locations throughout the hull.

The _Normandy_ , however, like all frigates, was too small for either of those. For weaponry it relied on disruptor torpedoes and anti-fighter GARDIAN lasers, and any shot that penetrated the hull would likely do too much damage for damage control parties to contain. So the vast majority of the crew was here, where they could do some good.

Every console in the room was occupied. The air was filled by voices, some at a normal conversational tone, others shouting orders. Crewmen and junior officers hurried to and fro, examining readouts and data on each other's displays.

Above it all stood Commander Shepard, on the specially designed podium overlooking the holographic projector in the center of the room. Lieutenant Pressley was standing at the XO's station immediately next to him.

Both of them were focused intensely on the projector. Where normally it contained a magnificent view of the galaxy, used as a navigational aid, now it had shifted to a view of a single star system—Knossos, Garrus guessed. Every planet and their moons was magnified to an impressive scale, allowing him to see an astounding level of detail.

Including the blinking red icon in orbit around the second planet of the system.

"Geth frigate," Shepard said, noticing the arrival of the two large armor-clad aliens and sparing the pleasantries. "About our equal in tonnage, but more heavily armed and armored, if the preliminary scans are correct."

Pressley threw the aliens a disgruntled glance and turned back to the display, saying nothing. Wrex also stayed silent, his red eyes studying the projection.

Garrus stepped up between Pressley and Shepard. "I think this reception confirms that Dr. T'Soni is on her mother's and Saren's side, don't you?"

"Hardly. There could be any number of reasons. If this is an ambush, why only leave one frigate, and not a squadron? If they're here to take her someplace, why haven't they left yet?"

Shepard waved a hand at the tactical display. "You can ask those questions to her yourself when we get her onboard. They're irrelevant at the moment. What IS relevant is the enemy warship between us and the drop zone."

"Do we even have to fight them at all?" Garrus asked. Urdnot Wrex snorted derisively behind him; he ignored it. "This ship has stealth systems."

"Those work by containing heat emissions from the ship's systems inside the hull," Pressley said, still not looking at Garrus. "They're useless in atmosphere, reentry throws off enough heat to be easily detectable. We can't deploy the ground team without being seen."

"We do still have some advantages," Shepard said. "We're faster than them, also according to the scans. And more importantly, they haven't picked us up yet. Surprise is a huge advantage in space as much as it is on the ground." Only now did Garrus remember that the Commander had never actually commanded a ship before. It didn't exactly fill him with confidence.

"Those factors taken together mean our best chance by far is a massive alpha strike," Pressley said, rapidly typing into his console. "Stealth systems up to avoid detection until the last second and fast enough to minimize the chances of successful return fire. We'll need to either kill or cripple them on the first pass, I don't like our chances in a sustained slugging match. Even if we were to win, there aren't any repair facilities in system."

"Make it so," Shepard ordered. "Get the torpedo launchers loaded. Joker, get us above and behind them."

"Aye aye, Commander," came the chorused response both from Pressley and from the helmsman over the intercom. Garrus felt the engines rumble as the pilot threw the ship into a long, looping arc that took it into a striking position above its unsuspecting target. _Just like a bird of prey on Palaven_.

Garrus saw a pulsing yellow icon pop up on Commander Shepard's personal display: the Normandy had closed to the point where its targeting systems could begin actively searching for the enemy, as opposed to long range data from passive sensors.

Shepard's hand twitched towards the icon. Pressley saw the movement. "The moment we launch, we blow our cover, Commander," he warned. "Torpedoes don't have stealth systems. Plus we're only just inside maximum range."

"Right." Commander Shepard focused back on the tactical projection, and took a steadying breath, his face set. "So we wait until the last possible moment."

The four of them all watched the rapidly decreasing range numbers on the projection. Around them, the crewmen on the bridge had stopped scurrying around and were all focused on their own stations. The CIC had fallen eerily quiet.

The rangefinder on the tactical projection narrowed to two thousand kilometers. Shepard's hand moved away from the firing button and rested on the railing of his podium.

Fifteen hundred kilometers. Garrus felt his mandibles involuntarily tighten from nerves.

One thousand kilometers. The firing icon turned from yellow to a bright, vibrant green, indicating that not just the _Normandy_ 's targeting systems, but the guidance packages in the torpedoes themselves, had acquired the target.

Seven hundred and fifty kilometers. The geth frigate had still not taken any evasive action, had still not come about to engage them, and there were no unusual energy spikes.

Five hundred kilometers. Shepard's hand clenched hard about the railing, then released it.

Two hundred and fifty kilometers. Shepard reached up and firmly pressed the firing button. "All launchers firing! Joker, break hard starboard!"

The _Normandy_ had three torpedo launchers—one amidships, and one each between the two engines on the port and starboard wings. All three soared out into space on Shepard's command, and made directly for the geth ship as the _Normandy_ broke away to starboard, their guidance packages having already locked onto the target while still in the launchers.

Two hundred and fifty kilometers was extremely close range in space combat, what manuals called "knife-fighting range." Had the _Normandy_ fired its payload from further out, as its inexperienced commander had initially wanted, the geth frigate would've had more than enough time to power up its lasers and casually blot all three torpedoes out of space, then return fire.

As it was, the torpedoes streaked in so suddenly and so fast that the geth only got one, and that with a lucky shot at barely thirty klicks out. The other two connected.

The first struck directly amidships—a kill shot if the geth frigate hadn't had its shields up. Instead, the warhead's detonation dropped the geth frigate's shields to twenty percent, and the transferred kinetic force knocked out several key systems in the ship, most crucially a full two thirds of its GARDIAN lasers.

The second torpedo hit aft. With its shields reduced to twenty percent, the geth frigate's reactor was saved from destruction. The more exposed engines themselves were not so lucky. Unlike the _Normandy_ , with its four engines on either side of the hull, the geth ship had two along the centerline close together. The disruptor torpedo turned one into scrap and reduced the other to barely 10% functionality.

Now with fewer weapons functioning than the _Normandy_ , the geth ship spiraled slowly in the direction of the system's edge. It was no longer a threat, and the human frigate could begin its preparations for deployment of the ground team.

The _Normandy_ 's CIC exploded into cheering as that fact became apparent. Garrus saw Commander Shepard exhale in relief, then straighten. "All right, everyone, settle down. We now have a free hand to go down there and fetch Dr. T'Soni. You all need to stay on your toes, this mission is only half done." Shepard looked at Pressley. "Confirmation that geth frigate is no longer a threat?"

Pressley nodded. "Yes, Commander. Their engine functionality is minimal. They won't be able to return to Therum anytime soon, if ever. Certainly not soon enough to interfere with us. We can safely forget about them."

With no way to control its direction or enter FTL, and no way to fix the damage inflicted, an organic crew would've been doomed to slow starvation or asphyxiation. With a functioning reactor, the geth were spared that fate. They would instead float around in space until their reactor failed in a few tens of thousands of years, or until the Alliance dispatched a cruiser to finish them. Garrus' money was on the latter.

His mandibles parted with amusement at the thought. The geth had yet to directly wrong him or any other turian, but the attack on Eden Prime had been wanton unprovoked butchery directed at civilians and military personnel alike. The geth were a threat to the safety of every organic if they were willing to do that; Garrus had no sympathy for them.

Commander Shepard turned to face him and Wrex. "I'm guessing the two of you already realized I didn't have you up here for your participation in the naval battle." _Yes,_ _that_ was _fairly obvious, wasn't it?_

Shepard continued. "You two are going to form the initial ground team with me. If we're going to be working together, I need to know as soon as possible what your strengths and weaknesses are, how to best incorporate you into the team. Tali as well: she was needed in Engineering for the space combat, but she's here for her knowledge of the geth as much as for her mechanical skills."

"If I recall correctly, Commander, you didn't think either of those were worth bringing her," Garrus pointed out.

"I didn't," Shepard acknowledged. "And I'm still not sure. But there's only one way to find out if she really has what it takes under fire. She's going to get her chance." He pointed to the tactical display, which had now zoomed in on a section of Therum's surface. "We'll be dropping in the Mako, about twenty kilometers from our objective. There's nowhere closer that we're willing to take the chance on. The _Normandy_ 's Marine contingent will stand ready as reinforcements if needed. Is the Mako ready to go, Garrus?"

"It is, Shepard. I was actually pleasantly surprised at the strength of its armor plating." He avoided saying anything about the rest of that damn thing.

"Excellent. Then head down and meet me by it. Tali and I will need to grab our gear first."

As he turned to head back down toward the elevator, Garrus spared a last look for the tactical projection and its depiction of Therum's surface. He hadn't engaged in a true battle since his days in the Hierarchy military. The closest he'd come had been the occasional shootout with small groups of gangsters too stupid to realize they couldn't hope to match CSec. A far cry from murderous synthetics out in the remote corners of the galaxy.

He was rather looking forward to this.

 **A/N: Mostly a character development chapter. Tali won't be getting a POV in my version of ME1, so this was meant to showcase her as much as Garrus.**

 **Wrex won't be getting a POV either, but Garrus, being a turian that doesn't like krogan, is doing his best to ignore Wrex ATM. We'll need to wait a bit, and see Wrex through more open-minded eyes, to start learning about him.**

 **Shepard hasn't ever commanded a ship before, or engaged in naval combat. It made sense that he's going to rely a lot on his XO as he learns the ropes. Also gives Pressley something to do other than just stand there and have the deck whenever Shepard leaves the ship.**

 **Finally, I haven't asked this in my previous ANs, but please, if you like this story, give it a favorite or follow. I'll be writing chapters either way, but follows and faves help my morale.**

 **And reviews help my morale even more. Nice long reviews. Praise, criticism, whatever, as long as it's feedback. At this writing, the 52k words I've published prior to this have gotten a grand total of three reviews. Which is disheartening. If you like this story, please leave a comment of some kind.**


	9. M Shepard III

_**2337 Hours AST, April 18, 2183**_

 _ **Vehicle Bay, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Low Orbit of Planet Therum, Knossos System, Artemis Tau Cluster**_

Shepard finished buckling on the last piece of his hardsuit's plating, then reached into the rack of weapons along the portside wall of the hangar. Like everything else aboard the _Normandy_ , the armory was barely large enough to rate the name. Perhaps ten assault rifles, ten pistols, five shotguns, and two sniper rifles made up the entire Alliance issue to the ship's crew.

Still, there was enough here for him to outfit himself. Under normal circumstances, Shepard's preferred combat kit was a semiautomatic Mattock battle rifle paired with a Katana shotgun. That loadout synergized nicely with his biotics to make him a terror in medium to close range combat, and he could usually rely on other Alliance Marines or Special Forces operatives to handle any long range threats.

But this time, he'd be going into combat with an all-alien squad. Both Wrex and Tali had only brought a single weapon aboard, from what he'd seen, and in both their cases it was a shotgun. Wrex was a biotic too, which would give him some capabilities at medium range, and Tali might be able to use her omnitool, but there was no substitute for an actual weapon.

Garrus had brought both an assault rifle and a sniper rifle, but it wasn't wise to let a single individual be the only member of the team capable of responding to certain situations. Shepard struggled with himself a moment, his hand hovering over a Katana, before he sighed and selected one of the armory's two sniper rifles, a M97 Viper. Not nearly as powerful as Garrus's Krysae, but it would still allow him to reach out and touch someone. His Mattock and biotics would have to do for closer ranges.

He pressed the buttons on each weapon to automatically fold them into their compacted state, then slapped them onto the magnetic hardpoints on his back. That done, he turned and paced across the hangar to where the rest of his squad awaited by the Mako.

They were the only ones in the room, the Marines having withdrawn into their ready room and sealed the doors behind them. It would be too dangerous for any personnel to be in the hangar when the doors opened; quite apart from the danger of being sucked out of the speeding spaceship, there was also the danger of being caught by the backblast of the catapult that would launch the APC into Therum's skies.

The three aliens were clustered by the hatch on the left side of the Mako. Wrex looked bored, as best as Shepard could tell, leaning against the vehicle. Garrus looked alert and tense, his mandibles twitching. Shepard wasn't worried about either of them, save perhaps whether Wrex would fit through the hatch. They were both veterans.

Tali was bouncing up and down on her heels in nervous anticipation, her hands folded in front of her stomach and her shotgun stowed in the small of her back. Shepard fixed her with a glare.

"Stop fidgeting. You need to be in control of yourself." She did, with seeming difficulty.

Shepard considered her briefly, then addressed the squad as a whole. "You all already know that we're going down onto the surface of Therum in order to recover Dr. Liara T'Soni, daughter of Matriarch Benezia, who is working with Saren Arterius and his geth against the Council. It is currently unknown whether Dr. T'Soni is an accomplice of her mother and Saren's, but the possibility is something we can't afford to ignore. Garrus, you have the stun cuffs?"

The turian nodded and produced a set of cuffs, designed for humans and asari, from a pouch on his belt. Shepard continued. "I'm hoping those won't be necessary, but it's best to be as prepared as possible. If she is working with Saren and the geth, she likely won't be willing to peacefully come along, assuming we can get to her in the first place. On that score, I do have some good news."

He tapped a command into his omnitool and projected a map of a section of Therum's surface into the air. "Dr. T'Soni is currently on Therum as part of an archaeological dig with several other asari. The expedition received permission from the Alliance, the colonial government of Therum, and T-GES Mineral Works to excavate at no less than seventeen different sites within this three hundred square kilometer grid almost seven hundred kilometers south-southwest of Nova Yekaterinburg, the planetary capital." Seventeen dots glowed on the projection. "Before we got to Knossos, the assumption was that we'd have to search each and every one for her."

Shepard tapped another command in, and sixteen of the dots faded. "As soon as we came close enough to the planet for our sensors to get good readings of the surface, we picked up massive energy readings from this particular site. The grants and permission forms filed by the asari expedition designate this as Site Biru, the largest of all the Prothean sites on the planet and the one with the most potential. None of the other sites are giving off so much as an erg of power."

Wrex shifted forward, taking his weight off the hull of the Mako. "So we've found her, then."

Shepard nodded. "It would appear so. Unfortunately, we're going to have a bit of a drive to get there. The Mako needs at least a hundred yards of open ground for a safe drop, and the closest site to Site Biru that fits that criteria is twenty kilometers away."

Conveniently, Pressley chose that moment to call him over his omnitool. "Commander, we've reached altitude of forty thousand feet and are approaching the drop location, ETA three minutes. Are you ready to go down there?"

"Almost, Pressley. Just wrapping up the briefing." Shepard deactivated his omnitool, then looked at the squad. "Wrex, I'm sorry, but you're too big to man a station, you'll have to sit in the passenger compartment. Garrus, you'll get the guns, Tali, the communications and ECW station. I'm driving. Everyone in, go!"

He ducked through the hatch and climbed into the Mako's interior. It was the first time he'd ever actually been in one; the Mako was a new design in the Alliance military, specifically designed for planetary assaults and explorations. Its controls were similar enough to the M29 Grizzly, the standard tank of the Alliance Marines that he'd driven dozens of times, that Shepard felt reasonably sure of his ability to handle it.

Still, he was fairly nervous himself as he settled into the driver's seat, though he took care not to let it show: the most revolutionary feature of the Mako over the Grizzly, what made it so uniquely suited for planetary assaults, was what they were about to do with it. The Grizzly and older models of Alliance vehicles were deployed onto planets either by means of large parachutes or by simply driving them off a landed transport. Either method rendered them vulnerable to antiaircraft fire, as they slowly floated down under their parachutes or sat in the transport.

The Mako eliminated that vulnerability by getting on the ground much, much faster. It did this by dropping out of a speeding ship—actually, not dropping so much as being thrown, by the maneuvering of the ship and a catapult built into the hangar deck— and free falling towards the surface of the planet it was being deployed on. At a preset distance above the ground, depending on the planet's gravity, jets in the chassis would fire and slow it enough to allow for a reasonably safe landing. In theory, the Mako would be driving and fighting within seconds of its wheels touching the ground.

In theory, anyway.

Shepard heard muttering behind him as the aliens squeezed in; Garrus was hunched over uncomfortably in the gunner's seat, and Wrex was crammed into a passenger compartment that could have easily fit three human Marines in hardsuits. Tali was the only one of the aliens that appeared at ease in the Mako, sitting neatly in front of the ECW console, already strapped in and her hands flying over the display.

His omnitool chimed again. This time it was Joker's voice that emanated from the device.

"Okay, Commander, we are thirty seconds out. It's excellent flying weather today on Therum, wind speed around 24 kph, surface temperature in the landing zone a pleasant 132 degrees Fahrenheit."

Through the hull of the Mako, Shepard could feel the rumble of the doors opening, and distantly hear the shriek of Therum's atmosphere entering the hangar. Tali tapped a button on the ECW console, and Joker's voice suddenly came through the speakers in the Mako itself.

"Have fun down there!"

The catapult came as a sudden shock, G forces slamming him back into the seat as the APC was tossed out of the hanger and into the sky above the planet. Shepard could hear what sounded like a krogan oath from the passenger compartment: Wrex had been too big for any of the seats and had instead wedged himself awkwardly on the floor between them.

It was odd that he was still nervous, he thought, if anything even more so than he'd been before getting into the Mako. He'd dropped out of aircraft and spacecraft countless times before, in training exercises and in combat, several times from even higher altitudes than this. The Systems Alliance military regularly practiced parachute insertions, as no other sapient species in the galaxy did.

If anything, Shepard thought, he ought to be perfectly at ease: there was no AA fire coming up at them, and he had a padded seat to relax in while the computers did all the work.

 _But maybe that's just it_. Normally an aerial insertion onto a target was filled with adrenaline. There was nothing between oneself and death except one's own reflexes and training. Screw up, and you became strawberry jam. The constant stress, the need to figure out just _when_ to pull the ripcord, was oddly comforting.

Now there was nothing he could do but sit and watch the altimeter tick away—thirty thousand feet now—and think about all sorts of things that were completely out of his control.

What if Dr. T'Soni wasn't even there? What if she'd left with the geth, willingly or a prisoner? What if they'd killed her?

What if the jump jets misfired?

What if the computer miscalculated their descent angle, or a crossbreeze caught them, and they landed in a river of lava? With a parachute, he'd have been able to control that as well.

Nothing about this was familiar. Not the vehicle, not the mission, not the stakes behind it, and certainly not the fact that he was the only human in the squad. N7 operatives were trained to handle the unfamiliar, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

Twenty thousand feet now. More to give himself something to think about than anything else, he took his eyes off the altimeter and twisted around in the driver's seat to look at the rest of the squad.

"Everyone good back there?"

He didn't get anything from Tali. The quarian girl had by now activated every display on the ECW console and was wholly absorbed in the data streaming across the various readouts.

From Wrex, who was now facedown on the floor of the passenger compartment, came more grumbling. "Shepard, next time we drop out of orbit onto a planet, I'll just jump. I don't ever want to get into one of these things again."

"I'd have thought you'd love to drive around in a tank, Wrex."

"A krogan tomkah is a tank. This is a thin skinned humiliating death waiting to happen." The massive krogan futilely attempted to lever himself into a more upright position. "Who taught you humans to build war machines?"

Shaking his head and smiling slightly, Shepard looked at Garrus. "I suppose I should have asked you if you ran checks on all the systems _before_ we dropped?"

The turian waggled his mandibles in a pattern Shepard rarely saw, a mixture between exasperated and… traumatized? "Believe me, Commander, ever since I got on board I have done nothing but calibrate every single part of this vehicle. I've checked over the main gun, the coaxial machine gun, the autoloading system for each…"

Ten thousand feet now.

"… the power plant, the reactive armor plating and ablative plating underneath it, the shock absorbers for the suspension…"

Seven hundred and fifty feet.

"You checked over the jump jets, right?" Shepard asked.

"Only about five times, Commander. They'll fire when the altimeter detects three hundred feet, should provide just enough counterthrust to give us a gentle landing. Don't worry, they're in perfect working order."

Four hundred feet. Shepard felt relieved. "That's good then."

"I'd swear your Alliance engineers screwed up every single nut and bolt on this thing coming out of the factory. Took me a while to get to everything, but I managed it. Although…" A look of dismay came over Garrus's face. "Oh _Spirits_!"

Three hundred feet. The jump jets fired in a pretimed ten second burst, designed to slow their speed at impact to no more than that of a child jumping off the last few steps of a flight of stairs. A feeling of near-weightlessness temporarily came over the cabin of the Mako as it floated down the last few hundred feet to the surface of Therum.

"I forgot to calibrate the altimeter itself!" The turian grabbed for his helmet.

The jump jets shut off when the altimeter read twenty feet above the ground. But the expected thump as the Mako touched down didn't come.

Horrified, Shepard looked at the thing. It now read negative ten. Negative twenty. Negative thirty. He could feel the APC picking up speed again.

When the altimeter read seventy-five feet below ground, the Mako finally slammed into the scorched turf of Therum with what felt to Shepard like the force of a dozen angry buffaloes jumping on his chest.

His helmeted head smashed into the roof of the cabin, and for a moment Shepard saw nothing but a white light and heard nothing but a loud ringing. Without the protection of his hardsuit and helmet, he'd likely have several broken ribs and a fractured skull. As it was, he probably just had a mild concussion instead. _Is that a good thing?_

After what seemed like an eternity but was probably just a few seconds, his vision and hearing refocused enough to see that half the panels over the driver's display in front of him had gone dark, and to hear the loud beeping from some of Tali's systems behind him. Shepard craned his head around to check on the rest of the squad. "Everyone okay?"

He was greeted with groans from Tali and Garrus, and a long stream of curses from Wrex. The impact had helped the krogan finally work himself back into a vertical position… upside down. The sight of his massive legs and butt sticking up into the air of the passenger compartment made Shepard snort in amusement, despite everything.

Garrus seemed to shake himself and began inspecting the breech and targeting systems of the Mako's guns. "Weapons seem to have been knocked out of alignment by the impact. Won't take more than five minutes to calibrate back, though." He'd managed to get his helmet on in time, and looked none the worse for wear.

"I don't know if we should trust your 'calibrations' right now, Garrus," Tali said, as she quickly reactivated the ECW console, flipping a switch back and forth to silence the beeping.

"Excuse me, but everything I actually got to is still in working order!"

Tali ignored him. "Most of the readouts I'm seeing look alright, Commander Shepard, though we don't know if there's another faulty instrument in there. Shield generators are good, ground penetrating radar is good. Rerouting power to steering, that should help you get us moving."

Shepard looked at his own display. The forward screens that were supposed to show him the terrain ahead were dark. "Little difficult to do that if I can't see where I'm going."

"Oh, right!" Tali unbuckled her harness and leaned forward over his shoulder, her omnitool extended. "The cameras are recessed within the hull, they shouldn't have been damaged, so that means some of the wiring got knocked loose… there should be redundancies… let me see…"

Her omnitool sparked, and three of the four screens in front of him flickered back to life. Shepard looked at Tali, reluctantly impressed. "Good work." He couldn't be quite sure, not being able to see her face, but she seemed delighted by the compliment.

With his squad and vehicle both in reasonable working order, Shepard looked back at the screens, really seeing them this time, and got his first look at Therum.

He'd seen quite a few vids as a child, both new ones and ones preserved from as long ago as the late 20th century. Of the latter, _The Lord of the Rings_ and _Star Wars_ (the original six, not the terrible Disney sequels or the even worse remakes from the 2060s) had always been among his favorites.

Therum looked like a cross between Mordor and Mustafar. The sky was choked with smog and ash, and there was a river of lava about twenty yards to the left, and another large pool of the stuff ahead and to the right.

But the path they needed to take was clear. A strip of clear land wound its way roughly due east, through the lava and hills. Shepard checked the directional gear, which Tali had also restored to functionality—that way led to Site Biru, sure enough. He turned his head to look back at the quarian. "Any sign of geth ground forces?"

"Nothing yet," came the reply. Tali was once more absorbed in the readouts from her console.

"Then it's time to get moving," Shepard said. He hesitantly pressed the gas pedal, and the Mako, seemingly just as hesitantly, responded. A slow crawl at first, to go easy on the wheels and suspension, but gradually working up to a solid 30 miles per hour.

The first five or so kilometers were completely uneventful. There were no sightings of geth forces, and no signs of any significant lingering damage to the Mako from their landing. The former didn't really surprise Shepard: how many troops could a single geth frigate have dropped off, anyway? The latter _did_ surprise him, but he wasn't going to question it.

The squad was mostly quiet as well. Wrex finally managed to work his way right side up again, though he was clearly still disgusted with the design of the Mako. Garrus, likely embarrassed by his failure with the altimeter, was obsessively looking over the guns as they drove, to make absolutely sure nothing got by him again.

Tali eventually spoke up again. "We have an incoming transmission from the _Normandy_ , Commander Shepard."

"Patch it through." Shepard didn't take his eyes off the forward viewscreens. They were nearing a particularly treacherous section of road—at points up ahead it narrowed to no more than fifteen feet between lava flows, if he was judging the distance correctly.

"…-th sig-… -ssible roadbl-…" The transmission was so clouded with static as to be barely comprehensible. Shepard wasn't sure of anything beyond that it was Pressley speaking to him.

"I'm sorry, Shepard," Tali apologized. "The atmosphere is playing havoc with signals. I'll try and scrub it as best as I can."

A few seconds passed before Pressley's voice came again over the Mako's speakers, this time distinctly clearer, though still not free of all static. "Commander, do you read me? We're trying to track your progress, but the signal of your transponder isn't coming through very well."

"Same with your transmission, Pressley," Shepard answered. "I suppose we should count our blessings we can get a signal at all, I've been on a few ops where that wasn't the case."

"If you say so, Commander. You've got bigger problems, though. We've confirmed geth signatures approximately half a kilometer ahead of you."

Shepard was instantly alert. "How many? What types? Did you get visual?"

"Negative on the visual, Commander. Wind's shifted and you've got a heavy ashfall sweeping in over the area. Prevented us from getting any more specific readings on them than there's about five or six signatures, fairly large. Probably what's interfering with comms as well."

"Copy that, Pressley." Shepard's eyes searched the viewscreens, though he didn't expect to see anything. The ashfall Pressley had mentioned was beginning to come down on their own location now, and visibility was shrinking rapidly. That was both a good and bad thing. At half a kilometer, the Mako's main gun could easily hit the "large signatures" if it could see them. But it was almost certainly within the enemy's range as well. "We'll handle it from here, Pressley. Over and out."

He slowed the Mako to a crawl. "Tali, I want you to overlay an EM emissions filter over the camera feeds, and pass that to the gunnery station. Garrus, select AP rounds for the main gun and be ready to shoot as soon as you see any anomalies pop up." They chorused their acknowledgement.

Shepard waited until he saw the fuzzy glow of the EM filter on his screens. "Tali, a 'large signature' indicates something approximately two thirds the size of this APC or larger. What do you know about geth ordnance that fits that description?" Only once the words had already left his mouth did he realize what he'd said. _Five or six armored vehicle equivalents from a ship about the size of the Normandy?!_

"It depends on whether they're quadrupedal or bipedal platforms."

Shepard twisted his head to stare at her. "Excuse me, what?"

Tali glanced at him apologetically. "Commander, this is pretty complicated. You'll have to ask me back on the ship for more details. The short version is that geth don't use vehicles. They're purely software, like sapient computer programs. They download into specific pieces of hardware for specific situations, called platforms. Everything they use, even their ships, is controlled by runtimes in the computer systems."

"Okay, so…"

"For heavy duty ground combat the geth use either bipedal or quadrupedal platforms. Bipedal ones are what you saw on Eden Prime, they just can be bigger. The two types of bipedal platforms that would be big enough to meet your definition of 'large signature' are what we call Juggernauts and Primes."

"Describe them," Shepard ordered.

"Juggernauts are painted red, about eight feet tall, and usually carry flamethrowers. They're not really a threat to this vehicle. Primes are white, eleven feet tall, and usually have 20mm wrist rockets and a Geth Spitfire."

"Which is?"

"Um, kind of like a portable minigun that shoots plasma?"

Shepard found himself momentarily at a loss for words.

"It would take at least five seconds of sustained fire to penetrate these shields," Tali offered. "One shot from your main cannon would be more than enough for a Prime."

"Oh, well, that's comforting. You said they had four legged 'platforms' as well?"

"Yes. Those are the ones they actually use as tank equivalents, the bipedal ones are more for command and control and close quarters. There's two types of those as well, Armatures and Colossi."

They'd been slowly moving forward as Tali spoke, their sensors and cameras only penetrating a few dozen feet into the ash that was now coming down as thick as any blizzard Shepard had ever seen. _That's exactly what this is. A gray volcanic blizzard_. Somewhere ahead and close to them were geth heavy units. _If their sensors can see through this mess better than ours can…_

"An Armature is the standard geth 'tank'," Tali informed them. "About three quarters as long as this vehicle and twice as tall. Its head mounts a mass accelerator cannon and a Geth Spitfire for a coaxial gun. Colossi are basically the same thing but bigger."

"How much bigger-," Shepard began to say, before he was cut off by Garrus.

"Contact! Twenty degrees to the right!"

Shepard instantly spun in his seat and peered at the viewscreen showing the indicated direction. He saw nothing but a curtain of ash.

"Garrus, are you certain?"

"Positive, Shepard. I had a hard contact with EM signatures, then it disappeared."

Shepard paused, his mind racing. "Garrus, how low can you depress the gun?"

"If I swing it out so it isn't lying along the hull, about thirty degrees below the horizontal. Enough to hit something within eight to ten feet, I'd say. Why?"

Shepard didn't bother answering. Instead he turned the Mako in the direction of the contact and floored the gas pedal. The APC lunged forward into the ash.

They found Garrus's contact within sixty yards. The turian again called out a report, but Shepard didn't need to hear it this time. He could see it quite well enough himself.

The geth platform was absolutely massive, nearly two stories tall, and resembled some sort of metallic hybrid between a spider and a giraffe. Standing on four legs, its vaguely arachnid body began turning to face the human vehicle it had been attempting to gain a lock on for the last minute and a half, the cannon mounted in the head atop its long, sinuous neck charging to blast the human APC into scrap metal.

The Mako struck first.

The legs of the platform were thick and sturdy. They had to be, to support the huge weight they were holding up. But the force of a twenty ton armored vehicle slamming into their "knee" joints at thirty miles an hour, combined with the weight of the platform's body, was too much.

For the second time in the last half hour, Shepard was slammed against his harness as the Mako smashed into the geth platform's right front leg. The force of the collision was absorbed by the APC's kinetic barriers, which were instantly depleted. The geth platform pitched forward onto its now crippled leg.

Shepard threw the Mako into reverse, backed off fifteen feet, and turned the APC so it lay perpendicular to the giant robot struggling to right itself. "Garrus! Shoot!"

Garrus did not need any encouragement. The 105mm main cannon roared, punching a hole directly into the 'chest' area of the behemoth, which had also lost its shields in the collision. The turian followed that up with a stream of coaxial fire, then another cannon round, until the geth platform was a smoking, sparking wreck.

There was silence in the Mako's cabin for a long moment.

"I'll make a krogan out of you yet, Shepard," Wrex said approvingly. "No skulking, no sniping, just get in its face and show it who's boss. Even in this crappy car."

Shepard spent a moment deciding how to respond to that and settled on just ignoring it. "Tali, I take it that was a Colossus?"

"Y-yes," the quarian girl managed. "I'd never actually seen them before except in history vids and a few briefings in Marine training."

Shepard looked back at the view from the miraculously still functioning forward cameras, at the smoking wreck that was half again the size of the Mako even in a ruined heap, and asked the question that had been nagging at him since Pressley's call. "How could they fit something that size into a ship the size of the _Normandy_? Let alone with room for four or five more?"

Tali shifted in her seat. "This is what I was trying to tell you earlier with that stuff about the geth being just computer runtimes. They don't work the same way as an organic crew would. They don't need life support systems, or food, or sleeping space, or anything like that. The space that would go to those things aboard an organic ship is instead used for platform storage. Any space that isn't used for vital systems like weapons or shields or engineering is used for storage."

"But still, the sheer size of that-,"

"It's not always that size. Not even most of the time. Geth platforms are designed to compact themselves for maximum efficiency when not in use. They've always been that way, going back centuries to when we wanted to transport as many of them as possible to mining sites on Rannoch and our colonies."

"So how many compacted platforms could they fit aboard the frigate we encountered in orbit?" Shepard asked. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.

"On a frigate? Under normal circumstances, I'd say… maybe two companies?"

From the gunner's seat, Shepard heard Garrus say something his translator couldn't decipher, and a rumbling krogan chuckle came from the passenger compartment. _Nope, definitely don't like that answer._

"But that's if there was nothing but standard trooper platforms," Tali added quickly. "Even in its compacted form, a Colossus takes up the space of about fourteen of those. If they brought more Colossi, or even just Armatures, I'd say they'd be at about half strength numerically."

"One company with heavy armor support." Against that, he, Lieutenant Commander Mark John Shepard, had four individuals and one Mako. He considered his options.

His first instinct would have been to call for reinforcements. The only ones to be had, however, were the Marines aboard the _Normandy_. Williams, Alenko, and the rest were good, but there were only five of them, without any heavy weapons. They'd be useless against armor. There was no way to get them down to the surface in any case, as he'd already taken the only vehicle and the ashfall made bringing the ship low enough for them to disembark on foot impossible.

Bringing the _Normandy_ in as aerial fire support was impossible for the same reason. Nor did he like the prospect of sitting still in the face of such overwhelming numbers and waiting for the ashfall to clear; that was practically begging the enemy to move in and overwhelm them.

That left one option.

"Tali, how are the shields looking?" He was impressed with her so far. She'd done everything he'd asked of her quickly and efficiently, and had recovered quickly from the shock of his admittedly reckless ramming of the Colossus. But the mission was far from over.

"Recharging. The emitters are fine, they're back up to about 45% strength already."

"It'll do. Keep an eye on the scanners. Garrus, likewise. We're pressing forward."

 _ **415 Hours AST, April 19, 2183**_

 _ **2 Kilometers West of T-GES Mineral Works Survey Site #87-9443/University of Nyxedrase Archaelogical Expedition Excavation Site "Biru"**_

 _ **Therum, Knossos System, Artemis Tau Cluster**_

"Garrus, HE round, three geth troopers at sixty yards 45 degrees front right!"

"Target acquired!"

"Fire!"

The main gun thundered, the Mako shuddered, and the geth fire team, one of which had been carrying a rocket launcher, vanished in a spray of fire, rocky soil, and white conductive fluid.

"Tali, report!"

"Shields at 63%, Commander Shepard. Sensors show clear, all enemies down."

Shepard straightened in his seat. The last four or so hours had been a slog reminiscent of some of the harder fighting he'd ever done in his life to this point. He'd been in engagements that had lasted longer—the Theshaca Raids had seen him on the ground and in constant contact for almost forty hours at one point. Elysium and Akuze had both been objectively far worse. But there was something about playing a constant game of cat and mouse with robot walking tanks and infantry armed with rocket launchers through a hellish lava landscape that wore on the nerves.

Even in a seemingly indestructible APC armed with a 105mm cannon.

But now, at last, the end of the mission was in sight.

He rolled the Mako out of the entrance to the mining service tunnel it had been sheltering in from the latest geth roadblock. Over the last few kilometers, they'd been encountering more and more signs of human habitation, confirmation that they were nearing their target. Site Biru, as well as almost all of the other Prothean sites scattered around this region of Therum, was on TGES Mineral Works' private property, and the detritus of industrial activity was everywhere around them.

"About another kilometer and a half to go on this road, Commander, then it gets into some hills before the Prothean site," Tali said, scanning her console. The ashfall had cleared up about two hours before, allowing the sensors and weapons to reach to their maximum range. "We may not be able to negotiate the Mako through them if I'm reading this right."

"That's the best news I've heard all day," came Wrex's inevitable comment from the back. Shepard just shook his head. The krogan, crammed in the back, had spent seemingly every minute of the drive complaining about the Mako, his bad mood only seemingly made worse by the fact that he was the only one not doing anything as the vehicle fought.

On the one occasion where they'd had to dismount from the Mako, Wrex had practically thrown himself at the hatch in his eagerness to get out and come to grips with the enemy. They had been in a compound used by TGES Mineral Works as a combination pumping station and heavy mining equipment parking lot, and the geth had raised and locked the gate on the road towards Site Biru.

It hadn't taken much to lower it, just a brief firefight with three geth inside a pumping shed and the press of a button, but the problem had occurred after that. Wrex had point blank refused to get back into the Mako, even declaring that he'd rather just walk the rest of the way. It had taken Shepard reminding him that he'd only been brought along on condition that he obeyed every one of Shepard's orders, and that if he didn't get his reptilian ass in the APC _right fucking now_ Shepard would damn well leave him stranded on Therum, to get the krogan grumbling back inside.

Having had to listen to Wrex complain the whole rest of the way, Shepard was by now wishing he hadn't bothered.

The remaining kilometer and a half went by without any geth. On one hand, Shepard was grateful for the break. He estimated they'd already destroyed about three quarters of a company of geth infantry over the past four hours, along with another Colossus and around ten of the smaller-but-still-too-large Armatures. He'd resorted to ramming twice more. The second time, he'd actually managed to knock an Armature into a river of lava. Even Wrex had quit complaining about the Mako long enough to be impressed by that.

On the other hand, if they'd destroyed three quarters of a company of geth, that meant there was still a quarter company left. They undoubtedly would have had time to prepare defenses in the hills ahead and around the excavation site itself.

The road was narrowing as they entered a hillier section. Shepard brought the Mako around the bend, and had his suspicions confirmed.

About thirty yards ahead, several massive blocks of stone had been placed in the road. They didn't block it entirely: about seven feet or so of clear space remained in between them. Beyond them, the road continued on into the hills before making a sharp right turn out of sight. _Perfect ambush territory. With plenty of geth troopers with rocket launchers and possibly another Armature or two lying in wait. Probably would've taken at least a couple Armatures to move those blocks of stone._

"Lava river to our left, Commander," Garrus said, as if Shepard couldn't see that for himself. "No way around it. Looks like it's on foot from here."

"About damn time," Wrex said, already moving towards the hatch.

Instead of an answer, Shepard threw the Mako into reverse, with its nose angled toward the left stone block.

"Shepard, what are you-," Tali began.

He pushed the stick back into drive and floored the accelerator. The APC shot towards the massive slab that easily weighed half again as much as it did.

At the last second before they rammed the stone block, Shepard threw the wheel hard to the right.

The force of the impact nearly instantly depleted the Mako's kinetic barriers. But the instant of repulsion they provided, combined with the Mako's nose glancing across the stone and the force of the turn, proved sufficient to tip the APC over onto its right side, with its wheels contacting the side of the stone block.

For an instant, the Mako drove on its side, through the supposedly impassable gap.

Then it was through, and it fell back to its normal position with all four wheels on the ground.

"You-you just… you actually managed to-," Tali spluttered, her glowing silver eyes wide in shock through her faceplate.

"I think that just broke about half the laws of physics," Garrus commented.

"More than half, I think," Shepard said dryly, successfully hiding his own astonishment that it had actually worked. The Mako's resilience had continually amazed him on Therum. Whether that was down to superior design, Garrus's calibrations, or both, he didn't know. "The good news is, if you're this surprised, I bet the geth who put those blocks in place will be even more so."

It was hard to read the emotions of robots with flashlights for faces, but when the Mako roared into the midst of the eight geth troopers around the next bend, three of whom were toting rocket launchers, Shepard couldn't help but notice that they hesitated to fire for a few seconds at the APC in their sights, as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing.

Naturally, that proved fatal.

Another encounter with ten more geth in a crater, all of whom were carrying rifles, also proved to be comically one-sided. Far more difficult was getting the Mako up the far wall of the crater, which only had a narrow footpath leading to the rim, and even that was obstructed by deployable cover the geth had thrown down in anticipation of a firefight with the four person infantry squad they'd thought was heading their way.

Still, despite Wrex's desperation-tinged pleas, Shepard refused to give up, and after several tries succeeded in getting the Mako up the wall and over the rim.

With that done, it was less than a quarter of a kilometer before they finally reached their objective.

The entrance to Site Biru wasn't particularly impressive. Shepard had been to industrial mines on at least half a dozen planets by now, and they all looked roughly the same. A long metal ramp led up to a thick round metal door set into the hillside. Beyond that would be the entrance to the mineshaft. Some mines, like this one, also had a collection of storage and processing tanks opposite the shaft entrance, to hold any minerals dug up or liquids that might be needed for fracking.

What most mines didn't have was a collection of geth around the base of the entrance ramp.

The geth's plan hadn't been bad at all, Shepard thought as he positioned the Mako and Garrus opened fire with both the main cannon and the coaxial. If they had gotten out of the Mako at the stone blocks, they would've first faced an ambush from geth in close quarters with heavy weapons, a single hit from which would've torn an unprotected infantryman in half. Then they'd have had to face another ten geth dug in on high ground in the crater.

And if they'd made it past those, they would've had to face an Armature on foot without any heavy weapons of their own, as well as a new type of platform that apparently had the ability to camouflage itself, stick to walls, jump around like a treefrog, and mounted a sniper rifle in its head.

None of which proved useful against the Mako. Not that Wrex seemed to care, of course.

"We have to go down into that mine, right, Shepard?" the krogan asked as soon as the Armature crumpled and fell. "You mind telling us how you plan on squeezing the car down there?"

"I don't," Shepard answered bluntly. "It's on foot the rest of the way. We'll leave the Mako here and drive it back onto the _Normandy_ after we've extracted Dr. T'Soni."

Wrex didn't exactly whoop in joy, but he did scramble toward the hatch quite quickly. Garrus and Tali followed him, then Shepard last of all from the driver's seat in the front of the vehicle.

The furnace heat hit him like a slap in the face, after hours in the air conditioned cabin of the Mako. 134 degrees surface temperature, Joker had said as they'd dropped. He'd gotten a brief taste of it at the pumping station, but still… _It'll be even hotter in the mineshaft, closer to the magma. Unless that power generator down there is powering a cooling system._ The amount of power necessary to cool an underground space on this planet would probably account for all those readings alone.

He unslung his Mattock battle rifle and began walking toward the ramp. The Viper would prove utterly useless underground and he heartily regretted bringing it. _Still, I couldn't have known, I suppose._

He stepped over one of the geth leaping platforms that had supported the Armature, sawn in half by a burst from the Mako's coaxial gun. "Tali, do you know anything about those?"

"No, I don't," the quarian girl said, stepping over the destroyed geth gingerly. "I've never seen anything like that, not in the old history vids, not in Marine briefings. And that's not good."

"Why not?" Shepard asked curiously.

"Because it means the geth invented the tech necessary for that platform on their own, after they drove us into exile. Every other platform we've seen existed before the uprising, or a close equivalent did. Even Armatures were originally just industrial haulers, and Colossi are just bigger versions of them. These leapers are completely new, something entirely original to the geth. The implications of that…" Tali shuddered, a motion strong enough to be visible through her enviro suit, as they followed Wrex and Garrus onto the ramp leading to the mine entrance. "Can I ask _you_ a question, Shepard?"

"Shoot."

"Um, at what? All the geth right here are destroyed."

Shepard snorted in laughter. "It's a human idiom. It means go ahead and ask your question."

"Oh. Okay. Why are we going into a mine? I thought we were looking for an asari archaeologist in some Prothean ruins?"

"We are." They were almost to the mine's entrance now. "TGES Mineral Works found Prothean ruins at the bottom of this mine about seven months ago. Almost immediately, asari academics petitioned to be allowed to explore them. It took them three months to get permission for an archaeological expedition to come out here and begin work. Four asari from the University of Nyxedrase on one of their colonies, and one from the University of Serrice on Thessia itself. The Serrice one is who we're looking for, Dr. Liara T'Soni."

"Might be we've found her already," Wrex rumbled. He and Garrus were standing over something just next to the mine's closed door. Or more accurately, Wrex was standing, while Garrus knelt and searched what Shepard now recognized as the body of an asari.

 _Shit._ Shepard hurried over to them. "What can you tell me? Can you figure out who this was?"

Garrus held up his thumb and middle finger, a gesture for patience, and continued to search the corpse. It had badly decayed, but there was still no mistaking the bullet wounds in its arm, gut, and neck.

"Shot in the back," Wrex said, having noticed the same thing Shepard had. "Probably no more than three days ago, the heat around here would've accelerated the rot."

"Shot in the back," Garrus confirmed, standing up. He was holding two cards, one shiny plastic, one folded paper, both spattered with dried purple asari blood. "Still don't think Dr. T'Soni is on her mother's side, Shepard?"

"I fail to see how this points to that at all," Shepard said irritably.

Garrus pointed to the shiny card. "Faculty ID from the University of Nyxedrase. This is Dr. Ishinathea Mainus, the expedition lead. Shot in the back at the mine entrance from fairly close range. Probably opened the door for T'Soni, who then shot her and went down there to package up Prothean artifacts for Saren."

"Why would Dr. T'Soni need the team lead to open the door for her? They all worked here."

Garrus wagged a finger in his face. "They were working on corporate property, remember? I'm guessing part of the agreement with TGES Mineral Works included restrictions on who was allowed to access the mineshaft and dig site. That's why Dr. Mainus here was carrying these codes." Garrus pointed to the folded paper card, then turned and punched a rapid series of numbers on the keypad next to the great metal door.

It groaned and rolled aside, revealing a yawning dark tunnel that vanished down into darkness. There were lights strung along the tunnel's roof, but they weren't on.

"Garrus, just save the theorizing for when we've got the doctor back aboard the Normandy." Shepard shifted his Mattock to a ready position and looked down the tunnel. "Wrex, you take point. Tali, you go next. The two of you are best equipped for close quarters. Garrus and I will bring up the rear." Wrex grinned toothily and moved down into the tunnel. Tali clutched her shotgun and followed, Shepard and Garrus close on her heels.

It was lucky he was wearing a helmet, Shepard reflected as they moved cautiously down the tunnel, following the dim shape of Tali in front of him, and not just for the protection from bullets and shrapnel. Without the inbuilt lowlight filters, he'd have been blind.

The next five minutes passed uneventfully as they worked their way forward. Then a flash of light came from the front, accompanied by the boom of Wrex's Claymore.

Shepard dove behind the nearest stalagmite, then poked his head and rifle around it and searched for targets. He saw no geth, but he did see several more flashes of light, and hear the blast of Wrex's shotgun, and the roar of an angry krogan.

Then a second shotgun's report joined in—Tali's. Abandoning his cover, Shepard sprinted forward, holding his Mattock in his right hand and calling up his biotics around his left.

He needn't have bothered. By the time he got there Tali and Wrex had disposed of the latest geth ambush: three leapers and five standard troopers. Wrex was positively delighted, judging from the toothy grin stretched across his face.

"Not enough to make up for all that time sitting in the back of the car while you three had all the fun, but it's a start," the krogan commented. "Now let's see what else is down here."

They kept moving forward, slowly in the darkness. Ahead of them, an obviously human-made industrial elevator loomed out of the gloom. The shaft stretched down into the darkness. Shepard peered downwards along it, and saw a faint blue glow far below. _The source of the energy readings no doubt, and likely where we'll find Dr. T'Soni. Or at least clues to where she's gone._

"Shepard!" Tali was standing next to the shaft, examining a switchbox attached to it. "Look at this."

"What did you find? The call button for the elevator?" Shepard moved over to stand beside the quarian girl.

"No, that's over there," Tali said, pointing at another switchbox on the right side of the elevator tracks. "This is..."

She flipped the switch.

Instantly, the mine shaft was flooded with light. The lights on the roof of the tunnel stretching back to the surface, worklights on the catwalk at their feet, great floodlights far below them. The mine went from pitch dark to bright as a sunny day in the blink of an eye.

"The light switch," Tali said proudly.

Looking about, his eyes and helmet filters began to adjust to the sudden brightness and Shepard began to realize the true dimensions of the place. To their left, and stretching almost a hundred feet down, was a vast, echoing cavern. To their right, what he had taken to be the cavern wall was actually the upper floors of a great building, sunken underground. It was a stark white, the sort of white that seemed to glow with an inner radiance and hurt the eye to look at too long.

 _That's Prothean? I thought their architecture was normally green?_ He wondered for a moment what made the ruins at Site Biru different, then mentally shrugged and moved on. This wasn't the time for that.

Shepard told Garrus, who was standing right next to the call button for the elevator, to hit the switch. As the elevator clanked slowly up toward them from where it had stopped far below, a part of his mind noticed that the ruins and cavern, far from being outrageously hot as he'd expected, were actually cooler than the surface. It seemed the ruins did indeed have air conditioning.

The elevator arrived, a rudimentary small metal platform suspended between tracks— typical for mining elevators. They all crowded in, though not without some grumbling from Wrex at being crammed into another extremely tight fit after he'd just gotten out of the Mako

Thankfully, the elevator arrived at the bottom of the cavern before Wrex really had a chance to build up a complaining head of steam. Shepard stepped out onto the catwalk and looked around.

To his right (now that he'd gotten out of the elevator), the cavern floor stretched off for some distance, littered with mining and archaeological equipment. He even thought he could see a massive cyndrilical industrial mining laser lying there, abandoned.

To his left, the start white wall of the Prothean complex stretched back toward the cavern roof. Directly in front of him was a large hexagonal chamber ten feet in diameter, with more exactly like it evenly spaced along its walls going both right and left further back underground. Craning his head back, Shepard could see more chambers on the walls of the ruins.

Oddly enough, each chamber had a translucent blue force field stretched precisely over its entrance. Looking through it, Shepard could see another force field over the opposite end of the chamber, blocking the way into a massive shaft of some kind beyond. Similar force fields appeared to be over the entrance to every chamber in the ruins, though oddly enough they didn't extend over the walls themselves.

 _This might be a problem_. That shaft likely contained the power generators for the complex, and was as good a place as any to begin looking for Dr. T'Soni. To find her would likely entail getting through the barriers.

Apparently, the rest of the squad had the same thoughts. "We've killed all her geth friends, so now she's hiding from us," Wrex said, his reptilian eyes narrowing.

"Garrus, Tali, can either of you hack this?" Shepard asked.

"Hack what? I've never seen anything like this," Tali said. "There's no visible emitters, and no hint of the computer system that's controlling it. I'd need days to have a chance at finding a way into whatever this is." Garrus nodded in agreement.

"And we don't have that kind of time." Shepard stared at the barrier, momentarily stumped.

Then a new voice, a woman's voice, joined in. "Hello? Is someone there?" It had come from down the corridor to their left. Shepard and the rest of the squad looked at each other. Could it be…?

Two chambers further along the corridor was an asari.

She didn't look particularly impressive at first glance. Clad in a standard lab uniform that was covered in stains, dirt, and scorch marks, she appeared to be about average height for an asari (around 5'7"), and with an attractive but fairly common cerulean skin tone. What _was_ impressive about her was the fact that she was floating six inches off the floor in her chamber, legs pinned to her side and arms stuck out horizontally in a T shape, surrounded from the neck down by a glowing blue energy field.

"Liara T'Soni, I presume?" Shepard said, walking up to the barrier curtain. Not that he had much doubt on that score.

"Oh, thank the Goddess! I did not think anyone would come looking for me!" Shepard had yet to see an asari that was physically unattractive, and this one was certainly no exception, though her features lended themselves more to "cute" than "beautiful". The "cuteness" was only enhanced by a splash of darker dappling across the light blue scales of her face; on a human, they would've been called freckles.

Shepard mentally shook himself. _Focus_. It was ludicrously inappropriate on multiple levels to be thinking about how cute his target looked. Especially when she also looked half-starved and exhausted.

"I've been stuck in here for days!" Dr. T'Soni gabbled, the words seemingly tripping over each other in their rush to get out of her mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, Shepard saw Garrus's mandibles flicker in suspicion. "Please, you must let me out of here! Take me away from this place!"

Shepard held up a hand. "First things first." Maybe this would allay some of Garrus's suspicions; the turian would perform better if he wasn't expecting a shot in the back. "Have you heard of Saren Arterius?"

"I- yes, when the geth showed up here, there was a krogan battlemaster with them. He told me this Saren was a Spectre and wanted me to help him find something called the Conduit. I've never heard of it, and I haven't helped him with it, please, just get me out of here!"

"Your mother is working with Saren. Have you been in contact with her?"

The asari flinched. "What?! I haven't spoken to my mother in fifty years! Please!"

Fifty years? For a moment Shepard was taken aback, then he remembered. Of course, asari lifespans. The woman in front of him looked eighteen or nineteen, but she was undoubtedly far, far older than that.

Still, fifty years was a heck of a long time to not talk to one's own mother, even for a species that was known to live to be a thousand. To Shepard's right, Garrus looked even more suspicious.

"Okay, calm down. We're going to let you out, as soon as we can figure out how to get past this barrier curtain. I don't suppose you have any ideas on that score?"

Dr. T'Soni took a deep breath, very obviously pulling herself together. "The krogan asked the same thing. I didn't answer him, not feeling very much like meeting this Saren of his. But you… may I ask who you are?"

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance Navy. Council Spectre as of three days ago." He made the introductions for the rest of the squad. "We're on a mission from the Council to track down Saren and bring him to justice. He's gone rogue."

"I see." Dr. T'Soni hesitated. "There is… a mining laser out in the cavern, perhaps you saw it as you descended in the elevator? It's been abandoned there for the past two months, but should still be functional. If the barrier curtain doesn't extend down to the foundations, you could use it to tunnel below the walls and come out in the elevator shaft on the far side. You could then use the elevator there to come up and unlock this cell from the console along the shaft's rim."

"You don't seem particularly happy at the thought of this laser," Shepard noted. "Why?"

Again, hesitation. "Because undermining the complex's foundations will quite naturally cause it to collapse. I have seen quite enough of this place personally, but it is still an incredibly valuable historical and archaeological site."

Shepard dismissed his incredulity at the thought of worrying about the sanctity of ruins at a time like this. "Okay then, I should go. We'll turn on the mining laser and get you out."

He turned and led the squad back along the catwalk, down the ramp, and out onto the cavern floor. Garrus moved up beside him. "Commander, forgive me, but-,"

"Garrus, I've already told you we'll discuss this more on the ship. There'll be plenty of time for an interrogation later."

"It may not be wise to let her run around unsupervised aboard the ship."

"Then we'll keep her under supervision. I agree that some of what she said seems a little odd, but none of it is impossible. Again _, later_."

They reached the mining laser. Shepard waved Garrus forward. "You and Tali get this thing online and aimed correctly." Then he prudently stood out of the way.

It took perhaps ten minutes for Tali and Garrus to turn the laser on. Shepard's first indication that they'd succeeded was a low whine from the device, steadily increasing in volume. Suddenly a huge, brilliant beam of light burst from its tip, aimed at the foundations of Site Biru. It continued for another three minutes before shutting off, just as Tali had programmed it.

When the glare faded and Shepard looked again, a new tunnel had been carved through the earth and rock, as well as through the foundations of the complex. Its edges were glowing with heat from the laser. _Well, good thing we're all in armored suits_.

They marched through the new tunnel and emerged into a vast elevator shaft. Unlike the human made one back in the cavern, this shaft was immense: almost fifty feet in diameter, with small ledges running around the circumference of the shaft at every level. A large platform formed the elevator itself, with a console in the middle. It was thankfully already at the very bottom of the shaft, on their own level.

Shepard stepped onto the platform and headed for the console in its center, the rest of the squad following. As he did so, he felt a slight tremor through his boots.

"Looks like the doctor was telling the truth about the laser undermining the ruins, at least," Garrus said, his face grim.

"We need to hurry," Shepard said. He hit the "up" arrow on the elevator console twice.

The lift rumbled into motion, taking them up two levels. They emerged directly behind Dr. T'Soni's cell, which was also sealed from this direction.

"You made it!" She seemed greatly relieved, turning her head as much as she could to see them. "Please-,"

"-let you out," Shepard finished. "Don't worry, we're on it. You said there's a console in here?"

"Yes, it should be along the ledge, quite close. You'll see a keypad on it. You'll need to hit the middle key on the far left column, the second key from the bottom on the second column from the right, and the top key on the second column from the left, in that order. Or else you'll end up like me."

Looking about, Shepard spied the console. It lit up, displaying a holographic keyboard. "Could you repeat the keys again?" She did, and Shepard pressed them in the precise order she told him.

Instantly, every force field in the ruins faded. Shepard heard a thump and a muffled "oof!" from the direction of Dr. T'Soni's cell. He walked back there, to see her in a heap on the floor. She unsteadily got to her feet, only to go staggering again as another, much worse, tremor shook the complex. The scream of tortured metal was audible from far above them.

"These ruins… they support the roof of the cavern. If they come down, the entire cavern will collapse as well. We should leave immediately."

"Yes, that's the general idea," Shepard answered, waving her and the squad toward the human elevator outside. It may have been rickety and cramped, but it was the only one that led back towards the surface. They all ran towards it.

As they did so, Shepard raised his left arm, activated his omnitool, and punched in a call to the Normandy's command net. Pressley answered instantly.

"Commander, what's the situation? Have you located-,"

"Yes, we have, but that's not important right now!" Shepard bit back a curse as the rumbling became louder and louder, accompanied by another screech from above. Getting on the rickety elevator seemed like a very bad idea, but they had no choice. They all piled in and Tali hit the button to go back up.

"I need you to get the Normandy underway and en route to the mine entrance for immediate extraction! Lock in on my signal!"

"Immediately, Commander. Secure and aweigh." There was a pause. "Joker gives me an ETA of eight minutes."

"Not fast enough!" Tali yelled as a piece of the cavern roof broke off and went whistling past them to smash on the cavern floor.

"If I die down here, I'll kill him," Wrex growled.

"Just get here, Pressley!" Shepard barked into his omnitool, then cut the connection. They were almost at the top now.

The elevator screeched to a halt and they piled out.

Only to be greeted with six geth and a very large krogan.

The geth looked much the same as the others they'd been fighting all day. The krogan was easily as large as Wrex, but with a brown headcrest, yellow eyes, and oddly yellow tinged skin. He stepped forward, his eyes focusing on Dr. T'Soni, cringing in the back.

"Ah, Dr. T'Soni. Good of you to show up. I'm afraid it's time to go meet Saren."

Shepard stepped in front of her. "She'll stay with us, thanks."

The krogan seemed to notice him for the first time. "Not an option."

"Not your decision." A massive stalactite ripped free of the ceiling and smashed through the elevator they'd just come off with a horrible shriek, sending the wreckage back to the cavern floor. Shepard swore. "Fuck it, we don't have time to deal with this idiot! Charge!" Both the enemy krogan's and Wrex's faces split into large, identical evil grins at that.

The catwalk immediately erupted into a storm of furious gunfire, almost loud enough to be heard over the noise of Site Biru tearing itself apart. Wrex and the enemy krogan lunged at each other, ignoring their weapons, each pummeling and headbutting, seeking to batter the other into submission.

Tali stepped forward and waved her omnitool, stripping the shields of three of the geth.

Garrus's Phaeston rifle chattered, dropping two of the geth that Tali had weakened.

Shepard stood in front of Dr. T'Soni, who was utterly defenseless, letting his own armor and shields take the blows. He lined up his Mattock on the third shieldless geth and pulled the trigger twice, feeling the recoil even through his hardsuit. The rounds hammered the geth trooper center of mass, instantly wrecking it.

Ahead of them, Wrex gained the upper hand over the enemy krogan. He slowly wrestled the enemy to the edge of the catwalk, then with a roar, threw him off the hundred-foot drop. Such a fall might not prove fatal to a krogan, but being down there when the cavern collapsed certainly would.

The remaining three geth crumpled in a hail of weapons fire.

The instant the last one fell, Shepard bounded forward. "All right, everybody out! To the surface! Move, _MOVE_ , _**MOVE!**_ " He had to scream to make himself heard over the cacophony of the collapsing cavern.

They sprinted forward, as fast as their legs could carry them, through the dust and ash, through the growing heat (the air conditioning had unsurprisingly failed at some point in the last few minutes), jumping over the fallen geth and dodging falling stalactites.

Wrex and Garrus were in the lead, then Liara, then Tali, with Shepard bringing up the rear. Not because he couldn't go any faster, but to keep anyone from falling out.

He saw Liara's pace beginning to slow. Tali drew even with her, then passed her. The asari stumbled, then tripped and fell.

 _I haven't come all this way to find you just to watch you get squashed now!_ Barely pausing, Shepard scooped her up and kept running, carrying her in his arms. She was surprisingly light.

He carried her all the way up the tunnel to the surface and out into the light.

 **A/N: Wow, this one kind of grew on me. Early in the writing process, I was afraid it was going to be too short. Teaches me to not ever worry about that, I guess. Speaking of which, is there such a thing as "too long"? Do you guys care about massive chapters? Something to put in a review (hint, hint).**

 **This is the chapter several of you were looking forward to seeing: when Shepard and Liara finally meet. Sorry if any of you were expecting true love at first sight. They both have much more pressing matters on their minds at the moment.**

 **Like, for Shepard, where Liara's loyalties really lie. "I've seen the way your crew looks at me, Commander, they do not trust me." Yet you hardly see any of that in the game. You will this time around, though.**

 **And finally, I apologize to you guys for this chapter being several days late, and I have bad news on that front. The reason it's late is because I took some time getting started on it, and the reason I took a while to get started is because I have my MA Thesis for Florida State that I need to be working on. That needs to be done and presented by the end of October.**

 **Which, unfortunately, means that you cannot expect any more chapters from me in this story before early November. I am not budging from my commitment to finish this story (and eventually, the whole ME trilogy) one bit. I promise you'll see quite a few chapters before Christmas. But real life simply has to be obeyed here.**

 **Enjoy, and see y'all again in the fall!**


	10. Kaidan II

_**0540 Hours AST, April 19, 2183**_

 _ **Vehicle Bay, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Therum, Knossos System, Artemis Tau Cluster**_

Kaidan stepped off the elevator into the vehicle bay just as the bay doors opened with a grinding shudder. There wasn't a howling scream of equalizing atmospheres like there would've been if the doors had opened further up, but what there was was bad enough.

Kaidan choked as a punishing wave of blistering heat, smoke, and volcanic gases rolled into the hangar. Therum's atmosphere was officially rated as "tolerable", and with no enemies in the vicinity of the LZ, he hadn't thought a helmet would be necessary. _Won't be making that mistake again_.

He had spent the past almost six hours in the Normandy's CIC, keeping watch over the sensor gear, trying to form as accurate a picture as possible of what the ground team was facing, and attempting to relay said picture to them on the occasions the planet's horrible weather allowed communications. It wasn't the most thrilling work, but it was vital, and vastly more exciting than what the other nine Marines assigned to the _Normandy_ 's detail had been doing: namely, sitting in the ready room in their armor and kit waiting for a call to reinforce the initial ground team on the surface.

That call had never come. Instead, Kaidan had watched from tens of thousands of feet above the planet's surface as Commander Shepard, with one armored personnel carrier, one turian policeman, one teenage quarian mechanic, and one antisocial krogan warrior had laid waste to a seemingly unending force of geth of all shapes and sizes. Towards the end, he'd done the math in his head and realized that there had been almost a full company of the robots down there, backed up with giant spider tanks.

Commander Shepard had methodically shredded them all.

It was surreal. On Eden Prime and in the firefight through Tayseri Ward, Kaidan had seen the Commander fight, and although he'd been just as efficient as one would expect from a graduate of the ICI, he hadn't been the unstoppable one man army that the history books painted the Lion of Elysium as. _This, though…_

The rest of the Marine detachment had already crowded into the vehicle bay by the time Kaidan got off the elevator, possibly in the hope that there might've been a geth or two hiding at the LZ for them to shoot. Looking out the now fully opened bay doors, Kaidan knew at a glance they'd be disappointed.

The _Normandy_ was slowly floating in to hover over a seemingly nondescript industrial site, one of undoubtedly dozens that dotted this region of Therum's surface alone. A few silos for fracking liquids were to port, a mineshaft sunk into a low rise to starboard, the ship's Mako that the ground team had taken sitting apparently abandoned in between. A magnificent vista of red sky and black soot billowing from volcanoes spread out in the background, but Kaidan paid it little mind. He was more concerned with the pressing issue of where, precisely, Commander Shepard and the aliens were, as Joker maneuvered the frigate ever so delicately toward the ground.

A sudden loud rumble, loud enough to be heard over the Normandy's engines and the noise in the vehicle bay, grabbed his attention.

The large round door of the mineshaft had rolled aside, and the figure of a krogan pelted out at a full sprint, followed by a turian and a choking cloud of dust.

Horrified, Kaidan pushed through his Marines and the Navy crewmen who had entered the bay to the edge of the ramp as the _Normandy_ halted its descent. A third form, very obviously a quarian in an envirosuit, sprinted out of the mine, as the hill it was set into heaved and began to collapse in upon itself. _My God_.

A second rumble, so loud as to be more accurately termed a roar, filled the air, not just making itself heard over the frigate's engines but drowning them out. The entire hill sagged and fell inwards before his eyes in seconds, forming a massive sinkhole at least a third of a mile across. The stench of sulfur rose from the gaping cavity in the ground, stronger than ever.

But just before the mineshaft's entrance had slid down into the new pit, Kaidan had spotted a fifth armored figure sprinting out of the mine, with yet another figure slung across its shoulders in a fireman's carry. Inwardly, he sagged in relief. All members of the ground team plus the target were accounted for.

Outwardly, he raised his voice to be heard over the clamor of the stunned personnel on the vehicle bay. "Okay, everyone, show's over! Marines, stand to and prepare to assist with recovery of the Mako! Navy, if you don't have immediate business in this bay, I want you out within thirty seconds!"

As his Marines moved to obey and the grumbling sailors began to filter back toward the elevator and the doors leading to the engine room, Kaidan strode over to the wall of the bay and hit the intercom. "Joker, I take it you saw that?"

"Sure did," came the instant reply. The sardonic tone of the helmsman's voice was readily apparent. "Can't see if anyone made it out though, LZ's directly below the cockpit at this point. Should I continue the descent or will we just be swimming in molten sulfur if I try?"

"Can confirm that all members of the ground team are safe," Kaidan replied. "All standing by the Mako waiting for extraction. You're good to continue." He paused, then added, "Might want to send Doctor Chakwas down here. The Commander's got a fifth individual slung over his shoulders, looks like an asari. Probably the target and she doesn't look capable of standing on her own, might need medical attention."

"Roger that, passing it through Pressley." The intercom cut off. Kaidan turned from it and walked back over to the ramp as the _Normandy_ finished its descent.

The lip of the ramp touched the burnt turf of Therum ever so gently twenty feet away from the Mako and the ground team, the frigate itself hovering steadily in the air. The krogan, Urdnot Wrex, was the first to board, helmetless, his hide showing several new scars where he must've been hit and quickly healed, as krogan were wont to do. The turian, Garrus Vakarian, and the quarian, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, followed him aboard, their postures clearly showing their exhaustion though neither seemed visibly injured.

Kaidan nodded respectfully to each of them as they passed, with Garrus and Tali returning the gesture and Wrex ignoring it. He had been skeptical of the Commander's plan to take all three of the aliens as his ground team without a single Alliance Marine backing him up; it was all well and good to test them under fire, particularly Tali, but surely that could've been done one at a time, with a squad that was already intimately familiar with Alliance procedure?

Yet together with Commander Shepard, they had obliterated an enemy force a hundred times their strength in size and firepower. Kaidan mentally shrugged. If there was one thing he had learned today, it was to trust the Commander's judgement.

Shepard himself came up the ramp last, as the Marines rushed down it to secure the Mako and haul it back aboard the ship. He was staggering slightly, from a combination of what seemed to be minor injuries and the asari still slung across his back. Kaidan moved to help the Commander as he lowered the alien woman gently to rest against one of the support beams in the center of the hangar.

Dr. T'Soni looked astonishingly young to have been worth all this effort, perhaps nineteen or twenty, but Kaidan knew enough about asari to know that appearances were very misleading. The green lab uniform she was wearing was covered in grime and soot and was peppered with scorch marks, but Kaidan could see no serious injuries as he looked her over.

Nevertheless, her eyes (blue as the rest of her) were flickering open and shut, her chest was barely rising and falling, and she appeared to be only semi-conscious.

The Commander stepped back from her and considered her with a grim look on his face. "We found her trapped behind some kind of energy field in the Prothean ruins below ground. No way through directly, so we had to undermine a tunnel beneath them with a mining laser that someone had left lying around."

"I take it that was responsible for the new sinkhole?" Kaidan deadpanned. In the background, the Mako had been successfully turned around by the Marines and backed into the vehicle bay. He could hear the whine of the engines slowly starting to increase in volume.

The Commander's frown deepened. "It was. We successfully retrieved her and began to bring her back to the surface, with only a minor interruption from a few geth and the most incompetent krogan battlemaster I've ever seen or heard of. She seemed relatively fine until we began running, at which point she collapsed." The Commander lifted his gaze. "Ah, Doctor Chakwas! Good thinking to come and see if any of us were injured."

"In point of fact, it was Lieutenant Alenko who requested my presence here, by way of Joker and Lieutenant Pressley," the gray-haired medical officer, trailed by a couple of sailors carrying a stretcher, said. "He was apparently under the impression that you had a wounded prisoner of some sort."

Commander Shepard looked back at the semi-conscious Dr. T'Soni slumped on the floor. "Whether she's a prisoner remains to be seen. And I didn't see any wounds on her other than minor cuts and scrapes, but it's definitely a good idea to go check her out. She's almost certainly extremely dehydrated if nothing else." Nodding, Doctor Chakwas motioned for her accompanying sailors to place Dr. T'Soni on the stretcher, then led them back into the elevator. The hangar door began to close, obscuring more and more of the surface of Therum; they had already risen several hundred feet above ground.

The Commander watched them go, then turned back to Kaidan. "The real question is, what do we do with her once she's given a clean bill of health?"

Kaidan had wondered that himself at various points over the past few days. "Were you able to get any idea as to what her role in all this is, sir? Were the geth defending her, or attacking her, or…?"

"They _appeared_ to be attacking her," a new voice said. Garrus Vakarian had finished stowing his weapons and gear. "Emphasis on _appeared_." The hangar door closed.

Commander Shepard shook his head wearily. "Garrus, I agree that there were several oddities in her story, but are you really expecting me to believe that she deliberately trapped herself in that energy cage?"

"Commander, are you aware of the third most common method of contraband smuggling onto the Citadel?"

"I fail to see what that has to do with-,"

"Are you?"

"No," Commander Shepard said irritably, "I am not. Do tell."

"It's rather ingenious," the turian said. "In return for an extra cut of the profits from the sale of whatever it is, usually anywhere from twenty to thirty percent, a gang member will be sedated by their fellows, then have the package- drugs, a compacted SMG, what have you- surgically placed inside their abdominal cavity. As often as not, it'll fool customs scanners. They then walk to their gang outpost in the Ward and get opened up again."

 _Well, that's disgusting_ , Kaidan thought, _but I still don't get the point_. Commander Shepard said much the same thing out loud.

"The point, Commander, is that people have been known to subject themselves to far more unpleasant things than say, trapping themselves in an energy cage for half an hour, in order to accomplish their nefarious goals. Neither you nor I know anything about this woman, other than that she's nearly twice as old as both of us combined, occasionally teaches a class or two at a university so large that her own dean probably doesn't know who she is, and she's the only child of Saren's biggest ally. And now she is aboard this ship and in position to fatally compromise us in any number of ways."

"I _understand_ , Garrus," Commander Shepard said testily. "Like I said in the mine, we'll keep her under guard at all times until further notice. As soon as Doctor Chakwas gives the medical okay, I want you to help me interrogate her." The Commander looked round at Kaidan. "You as well, Alenko. I'll also need you to have Dr. T'Soni moved from the med bay to the brig when Dr. Chakwas gives the okay, we'll interrogate her there."

Kaidan fidgeted. "Excuse me, Commander, but the _Normandy_ doesn't actually have a brig, it's-,"

"Too small," the Commander finished. "Of course it is. A ship that's designed to spend most of its time hunting down smugglers and pirates doesn't have a brig. Is there any place else on board that might be suitable?"

"There's a fairly roomy storage compartment accessible through the med bay," Kaidan offered. "Mostly being used for medical supplies and spare parts at the moment. If we moved the med supplies into the med bay and the spare parts down here, there'd be enough room to stick a cot and a few chairs in there."

"Alright, sounds good," the Commander nodded approvingly. "I need to go file my report on this mission with the Council and the Alliance, then discuss our next move with Pressley. I think the brass would like to know that we had geth on another one of our colony worlds and nobody had any clue. Once that's done, I'll need to see you, Garrus, so we can discuss precisely what this interrogation of our guest is going to look like. Kaidan, I want you and the rest of the Marine detail to clear out that storage room. Once Dr. T'Soni's been moved, I'll want a Marine stationed at the entrance to the storage room and another at the entrance to the med bay itself until further notice. Any questions?"

They both shook their heads.

"Good. Make it happen."

 _ **1130 Hours AST, April 19, 2183**_

 _ **Port Medical Storage Compartment, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Orbit of Planet Archanes, Knossos System, Artemis Tau Cluster**_

"Please state your full name, date and place of birth."

The asari shifted uncomfortably on the chair that had been dragged in from the wardroom for her. "Forgive me, Commander, but I do not understand why that is necessary. We already learned each other's names on Therum."

Commander Shepard tapped his datapad. "It's a formality. Just tell us."

"Very well. My name is Liara T'Soni. I was born on the fourth day of the month of Raelia, in the year eighteen thousand and twenty four of the Thessian calendar—I am uncertain as to what that translates to in the human calendar-, in the city of Armali on Thessia. May I ask why I am being questioned in this manner? I thought you came to Therum to rescue me."

Commander Shepard did not immediately answer her question, instead looking at Kaidan. "Her answer checks out against the record, sir." That had been one of Garrus's first suggestions for the interrogation—there was always a possibility that they were dealing with an imposter or plant, although even the turian hadn't thought it likely.

It was Garrus who answered her. "We came looking for you, true enough, Doctor. But it's an open question whether you needed to be rescued."

Dr. T'Soni looked even more confused now, and slightly apprehensive at the coolness in the turian's voice. "What? I don't understand. That doesn't make any sense, how could I not have needed rescue?"

When Dr. T'Soni had been brought to the infirmary, she had been, according to Dr. Chakwas, in a state of near total bodily shutdown brought on by stress, fatigue, and dehydration. The _Normandy_ 's surgeon had immediately hooked her up to an IV drip of nearly a gallon and a half of water, and had refused to allow any interrogation or other stressful activity for the next six hours, even though Kaidan and the rest of the Marines had readied the storage room in one.

Despite the rest she'd gotten, Dr. T'Soni still seemed utterly exhausted. Her eyes were purple-rimmed and bloodshot, and she was speaking deliberately, as if having to make sure each sentence was correct before it left her mouth. Kaidan was no stranger to exhaustion himself- he had been up for almost sixteen hours at this point, having been just about to come off shift when the _Normandy_ entered the Knossos system and came to general quarters- but the Alliance, like all other galactic militaries, made sure its sailors and Marines could handle fatigue.

A university professor, on the other hand, would not have the benefit of that sort of training. _Getting tired isn't the mark of a civilian; letting it overly influence your thoughts and actions is_. Dr. T'Soni was acting just like her biographical data indicated she would. _This doesn't seem like an infiltration specialist to me._

Commander Shepard leaned forward and folded his hands on the small folding table that separated himself, Kaidan, and Garrus from Dr. T'Soni. "Doctor, do you remember who I am?"

"You are Lieutenant Commander Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy, and a Council Spectre," she answered promptly. "Although I did not think there were any human Spectres."

"I'm the first, appointed to specifically to hunt down and neutralize Saren Arterius, my predecessor." Kaidan thought he saw a light flicker in the asari's eyes at the mention of Saren. "Have you been keeping up with the news lately, Doctor?"

"No. I was actually trying to establish a comm link for that purpose when the synthetics showed up, but-,"

"They're called geth, doctor. We'll get to your account shortly, but if you are unaware of the events of the past few days, Doctor, then we should start by enlightening you. Approximately one week ago, our colony world of Eden Prime was attacked and devastated by the geth."

The Commander proceeded to relate the events of the past week to their sort-of prisoner, taking care to make them as brief and simple as possible, both to aid in civilian understanding, and to avoid sharing as much potentially classified information as possible.

Through it all, Kaidan continued to quietly watch Dr. T'Soni. She was a good audience for the Commander's story; she expressed horror and sympathy even at the bare facts of the devastation wreaked by Saren and his geth on Eden Prime, and awe at the sheer amount of geth that had been deployed on Therum in pursuit of her. She was suitably impressed at the magnitude of the task facing the _Normandy_ 's crew, and the look of stunned disbelief that crossed her face when she learned that her own mother was confirmed to be working with Saren was not one that Kaidan would soon forget.

It was that last one that cemented the impression that had been growing in Kaidan's mind since he first glanced over the dossier Ambassador Udina had given them in FTL en route to the Knossos system. The raw pain written on Dr. T'Soni's face as she learned of Benezia's betrayal would have taken a professionally trained actor to fake. And while it was true that their information on Dr. T'Soni didn't show things like the asari equivalent of high school drama classes, there was nothing in what it did show to make Kaidan think she'd ever taken them. Or that she'd done well enough in them to be able to put together a performance like this.

She was a stressed, exhausted, hungry civilian scientist in over her head. That was all. And Kaidan was becoming rapidly convinced that this trip to Therum had been a waste of time.

 _Well, maybe not a complete waste_. They had saved an innocent scientist and removed an unexpected infestation of geth from a human colony, after all. But they were no closer to finding out where Saren or Benezia were or what they and their geth were trying to accomplish.

On Shepard's other side, Garrus still looked slightly suspicious, but Kaidan could tell that the turian was reluctantly beginning to reach some of the same conclusions he himself had.

"I-I don't know what to say," Dr. T'Soni managed when the Commander had finished his recap. "I cannot begin to express my sorrow at the loss your people have suffered, Commander. If my mother truly was a part of this, then I can understand why I would fall under suspicion, although I would never in a thousand lifetimes condone anything like this for any reason."

" _IF_ your mother was part of this?" Garrus wasn't quite as brusque as he'd been earlier. "I understand what you must be going through, Doctor, but the recording we have was first identified as her by Councilor Tevos and then confirmed by machine analysis."

"I merely cannot reconcile this with the mother I knew. Benezia has spent her entire life, nearly a thousand years, advocating for peace and understanding between the species of the galaxy. To throw it all away… I do not understand what possibly could have been worth this."

"That's the other question we were hoping you could help us answer, Doctor." The Commander looked sympathetic. "We are almost certain that the reason Saren, Benezia and their geth attacked Eden Prime was to gain access to a Prothean beacon that our scientists had recently discovered there. Given your acknowledged expertise in the Prothean civilization, perhaps you could help us figure out precisely what information they may have gotten from it so we can get some idea of their intentions."

But Dr. T'Soni had very obviously stopped paying attention after the word "beacon". The exhaustion seemingly fell at once from her drooping shoulders and her eyes lit up. "A Prothean beacon? Commander, your people found a functional Prothean beacon? With all of its matrices functional?" She sounded breathless with excitement.

"I'm not exactly sure about that last one, but yes." Kaidan addressed the asari directly, slightly bemused by her sudden change in demeanor. "Our research team on Eden Prime uncovered it almost a week and a half ago. The only reason we were even at Eden Prime in time to respond to the geth attack was the fact that we'd been sent to pick it up for examination by the Council. The geth attack seemed centered on the beacon's location, and we're reasonably certain Saren was able to access it."

"Where is it now?" Dr. T'Soni was practically quivering. "Has it been safely isolated for study?"

"I'm afraid not." Commander Shepard replied. "Unfortunately, when we attempted to secure it for transport, the beacon somehow was able to download some images into my head and then disintegrated."

Several emotions flitted across Dr. T'Soni's face—disappointment, dismay. Then her eyes bulged. "The beacon telepathically stored information in your mind?" When the Commander nodded uncertainly, she let out a soft scream.

"By the Goddess!" To Kaidan's astonishment, the asari jumped up out of her chair (they hadn't bothered to physically restrain her, the three of them, two of them biotics and all three armed being thought more than enough to contain any attack or escape attempt) and began frantically patting down her grimy lab uniform. "The implications of this- the greatest discovery in this field in at least a century- no, two centuries- _why_ this human wasn't immediately taken to a fully equipped research facility- make that five centuries, the Xawin Ruins were a hoax- tell me I didn't leave it on Therum-,"

"Doctor, please-,"

Unable to find whatever it was she had been looking for, Dr. T'Soni abandoned her search of her pockets and leaned forward across the table, placing her face within a few inches of the now completely nonplussed Commander Shepard's, apparently trying to peer into the corners of his eyes while still excitedly talking to herself. "The contact of such barely understood technology with a sapient mind—no, never mind the possible effects of that, Liara, this proves beyond any doubt Saivia Calena's longstanding theorem that the beacons were designed to transmit information in this manner! Oh, I wonder if it would be possible to-,"

"Dr. T'Soni!" Kaidan had risen to his feet; on Commander Shepard's other side, Garrus had done the same. Neither of them had drawn their pistols, but their hands had moved perhaps a few inches closer. "Please. Sit. Back. Down."

All at once, Dr. T'Soni seemed to come back to herself, her expression wilting. "I- yes, of course." She slowly sat back down in her chair. "Please forgive me."

"You're forgiven." Commander Shepard had very quickly regained his composure. "Did I hear you correctly in saying that you didn't even know for sure that Prothean beacons could do that?"

"No, Commander. I didn't know, I mean. It was a longstanding hypothesis among the scientific community, but without access to an actual, functioning beacon, there was no way to know for certain. This one that your Alliance excavators discovered was a priceless find; I would have given anything to have had a chance to examine it."

"So there's nothing you would know about what sort of information it might contain?" The Commander didn't bother to hide his disappointment.

"Not without direct access to the beacon itself. I'm sorry, Commander. I would very much like to discuss these images that were transmitted to your consciousness with you, however. Perhaps that might help you learn of Saren and my mother's plans."

"Maybe." Commander Shepard stood. "This interview is over. You are not to leave this room without my approval. There's a cot over in the corner in case you need to sleep, and I'll have the steward send in a meal for you shortly since I assume you have not eaten in quite some time. I will check in with you when I have decided what to do with you." He inclined his head in the asari's direction, then turned and left the storage compartment. Kaidan and Garrus, neither of whom had resumed their seats, followed.

The Commander strode briskly through the quiet medical bay, past Doctor Chakwas at her workstation and Private Robert Breazale, the Marine Kaidan had set to guard the storage room door. He paused only briefly to allow the med bay door to open, then stepped out past Gunnery Sergeant Williams into the corridor beyond and headed toward the starboard side of the ship.

Kaidan and Garrus Vakarian trailed along behind him. This had been agreed beforehand, like the general pattern of the questions they had intended to ask Dr. T'Soni. It would not do to openly discuss this in front of the general crew: they would learn what was going to happen to Dr. T'Soni only insofar as it concerned them.

Commander Shepard pressed a brief key sequence into the pad beside the door of his quarters, then led them in and closed the door.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

"Well, Vakarian?" the Commander said. "Do you still think she's plotting to assassinate me and blow up the ship?"

The turian hesitated. "I still have my suspicions about her, Commander. Several of the more glaring holes in her story weren't addressed in this session, such as this supposed failure to talk to her mother for fully half her life, and until they are, I won't be completely sure she poses no threat… but I will admit that I still have nothing but suspicions."

"And what would you recommend we do?"

"Keep her and keep interrogating her until every hole is filled," Garrus said bluntly. "That falls directly under your prerogative as a Spectre."

Commander Shepard folded his arms across his chest and looked down at the floor, obviously thinking. "And you, Kaidan? What's your take on this?"

"Sir, my take on this is that Doctor T'Soni is exactly what she looks like on the surface. She's an innocent civilian who can't help us or hurt us. Maybe I haven't dealt with criminals for years, but I just have a hard time believing that anyone but a professionally trained operative could fake all that. And nothing we have on her suggests she's even had amateur training."

"Your ideas on what to do with her?"

"Sir, Officer Vakarian may be right that you can detain her as long as you want, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. If you want my opinion, it's that you should take her in, drop her off on the Citadel, and pay for her ticket back to Thessia since she probably lost both all her pocket change and her ID on Therum." _Not our fault, but I think we can spare a few credits each. I'd pay for it myself if I had to._

The Commander stared at the floor a moment more, then looked up. "That's a good philosophy, Kaidan. And it's in line with my thoughts on this, more or less. We have nothing but conjecture pointing to any wrongdoing on her part, I can't justify continuing to hold her to myself." Commander Shepard pulled out his datapad containing his notes from the interrogation, glanced at it briefly, then laid it on his desk. "But I disagree that she can't help us."

"What do you have in mind, Commander?" Kaidan hadn't been around turians as much as the Commander had, but even he could see the disappointment on Garrus Vakarian's face. The turian didn't let it into his voice, though.

"It's a three day FTL flight back to the relay in the Sparta system. We're going to try to use that time to get answers to your remaining questions, Garrus, to put your mind at ease if nothing else, but Dr. T'Soni will be clearly informed within the next hour or so that she is not a prisoner on this ship and that we are going to drop her off on her preference of the Citadel or Thessia as soon as possible."

The Commander paused, his face still clouded in thought. "And I am also going to take her up on her offer of a discussion of the visions I got from the beacon. No one may have experienced one of those things before except Saren and I, but he came to Eden Prime looking for the information on that beacon, and this is all we know of it. If there's any chance someone familiar with the Protheans can help pick out anything useful from this mess in my head, then I am going to take it."

He looked between Kaidan and Garrus, standing there in the dimness of the captain's quarters. Kaidan could see the decision on his face, and suddenly noticed how tired the Commander looked. He hadn't paid close attention during the previous few days, and if he'd noticed anything he'd just dismissed it in the back of his head as a natural byproduct of how busy Commander Shepard was. But after what the man had just said… _Are these visions keeping him up at night?_ If anyone could sympathize with that, it was Kaidan. He'd had another implant flareup not two hours before.

"Are there any questions?" Kaidan and Garrus both shook their heads no. "Good. You can return to your normal duties. Vakarian, make sure you calibrate the damn altimeter this time. Dismis-,"

An indicator on Commander Shepard's personal workstation lit up a bright amber with a loud buzzing noise. The digital label under it simply said "URGENT".

The Commander pressed the button. "Commander Shepard here."

The voice of Lieutenant Pressley emanated from the workstation. "Sir, we've just received a communication from Fleet Headquarters on Arcturus Station in response to your report."

The first thing that Commander Shepard had done on his return to the _Normandy_ from Therum's surface after giving Kaidan and Garrus their instructions, changing from his armor into casual duty fatigues, and reporting to the Council— _so really, more like the fourth or fifth thing_ —had been to submit a report to Arcturus informing them of the geth incursion on one of their colony worlds.

"What did they say, Pressley?" The Commander looked tense.

"Your report went straight to Fleet Admiral Drescher; I'd guess that's a perk of being a Spectre. As soon as it landed on her desk she ordered an immediate check of our communications with every single officially sanctioned colony in the Traverse and Verge." Kaidan knew what was going to come next.

Commander Shepard apparently did too. "How many failed to respond?"

"Two, sir. Chasca, in the Maroon Sea and Feros in the Attican Beta. They're both fairly remote pilot colonies." _Therum was remote too_. "Only a few hundred colonists apiece and no infrastructure to speak of yet, it could easily be explained by any number of environmental or mechanical causes." Even over the intercom, Kaidan could tell Pressley didn't believe that.

"I take it Arcturus wants us to investigate?"

"Since you were made a Spectre, they have no official authority over you anymore, so Admiral Drescher and Fleet Command politely request that we immediately investigate these colonies. Should they indeed be under attack by significant hostile forces, you are further requested to immediately relay that information to Fleet Command, who will promptly dispatch relief forces."

Commander Shepard smiled darkly. "Well, since they asked so politely, how could we say no? Which one is closer?"

"They're both roughly equidistant in lightyears, Commander, not that it particularly matters. More relevantly, the most direct relay jump to Maroon Sea from Artemis Tau actually routes through Attican Beta, so it would be a quicker journey to Feros."

The Commander pondered that for a few seconds, drumming his fingers on his desktop. "Pressley, set course for Maroon Sea and Chasca. We'll start with the most distant one first, then work our way back." When Pressley acknowledged and cut off his end, Shepard looked back at Kaidan and Garrus, still quietly standing there. "It looks like you'll get your way after all, Garrus. Dr. T'Soni will be staying aboard longer than planned."

 **A/N: Well, y'all said you were okay with long chapters in your reviews and you're getting a short one anyway: third shortest so far. Not that I'm going to consistently give you short ones, mind, just that this is a bridge chapter and I felt pressured to get it out in November to boot.**

 **It's been a while. In my AN for Mark Shepard III, I said that I hoped to have my thesis successfully done and defended by the end of October and consequently have time to get this out in early November. That didn't work out for various reasons, and I ended up defending on November 19** **th** **. Successfully, thankfully, but it still pushed this back way more than I'd like and now my final term paper of graduate school is breathing down my neck—due on December 4** **th** **. Once that's done, there shouldn't be anything in between you guys and at least two more chapters before New Year's, as well as Jane's Fighting Ships 2183 Edition, which I announced a while back on my profile.**

 **Sorry if Garrus came off as a bit of a paranoid jerk. Someone has to be bad cop and he fits more naturally than anyone IMO.**

 **As always, please follow/favorite/review!**


	11. Sparatus I

_**1100 Hours AST, April 19, 2183**_

 _ **Turian Embassy Suites, Fourth Floor, Council Tower**_

 _ **The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

" _…therefore, in light of the recent treason of Spectre Saren Arterius, the Hanar Illuminated Primacy desires to express its firm belief that all actions, judgements, and arrests made by Spectre Saren Arterius ought to be considered illegitimate, including his incarceration of two hanar diplomats on February 9_ _th_ _, 2179. It follows from this that these ones, illegitimately incarcerated as they have been, ought to be expeditiously, perspicaciously, and assiduously liberated from their unjust confinement, with full apologies and restitution made by the Turian Hierarchy to their families and to the Illuminated Primacy…"_

The official petition went on for another eight pages, but Tarren Sparatus did not bother to read further. There was no reason to torment his brain with any more hanar pomposity, not when he already knew his answer would be a blunt "no".

The turian Councilor sank back into his luxurious office chair and cradled his aching head in his talons. All hanar worshiped the Protheans as gods, and were outspoken against any investigation or exploitation of the ruins and artifacts left behind by the precursor civilization (quite hypocritically, since the hanar had achieved space flight by exploiting the Prothean ruins on their homeworld, Kahje, some of the largest in the galaxy). But four years before, two minor hanar functionaries attached to their consulate on the salarian world of Jaeto had taken the unusual step of hiring mercenaries from the Eclipse, Arrow Cross, and Vult consortiums to unceremoniously murder asari and salarian researchers en route to various Prothean sites.

The guilty individuals had been identified and apprehended in short order by Saren Arterius, but they had had friends in the hanar government, as well as a sizable portion of the hanar populace that quietly sympathized with their actions. The evidence that Saren had presented at the time had been straightforward and clear enough that there had been no way for their sympathizers to contest their convictions and sentences of life imprisonment.

Until now. _"With full apologies and restitution made by the Turian Hierarchy", indeed. The utter gall._ Sparatus would have called the hanar "barefaced", except the giant jellyfish didn't really have faces.

The hanar petition was far from the only one he'd received in the past few days, although it was the most brazen he'd seen yet. Saren Arterius had been a living legend, his exploits carefully sanitized to remove the more brutal bits and deliberately used by a turian state desperate to repair the image that had taken such a beating after the Relay 314 Incident. Saren Arterius had been held up as a shining example of turian skill and courage, and now his treason had given every party in the galaxy with a grudge against the Hierarchy, from individuals to governments, an opening.

It was why he'd defended Saren so ferociously when the Systems Alliance had first leveled their charges against him. _I do believe part of me knew that the accusations against him were at least somewhat true the moment I first heard them. Dishonor runs in the blood of Clan Arterius._ But the knowledge of what it would mean for the Hierarchy for Saren to be exposed in such a manner had meant that he had forced all doubts aside, to suppress this threat to his people. He had _willed_ himself to believe in Saren's innocence.

And had promptly been undercut by Councilor Tevos, deftly maneuvering Councilor Valern and the humans to make him look like a fool. She had even insisted that Saren's human replacement be inducted into the Spectres in a public ceremony broadcast galaxy wide, to ensure that every observer was aware of what had happened.

Ever since, Sparatus had been a loss to explain why. Well, not entirely; quite obviously, Tevos had been endeavoring to weaken the Hierarchy and thereby strengthen her own position.

But for precisely what ends, he still could not fathom. Of the mountain of demands, petitions, and communiques that had appeared in his inbox since the conclusion of Commander Shepard's Spectre induction ceremony, not one had issued from the asari embassy, or the government of any asari republic, or any major consortium based in asari space. It was frankly rather unnerving.

Sparatus's reverie was abruptly interrupted by a chiming tone from one of the monitors on his desk. Sitting back up and peering at it, he saw that a new file had appeared in the folder specially set aside for the reports of Spectres in the field (he'd never understood where the vids got their image of secret video conferences with the entire Council from—he had no time to engage in separate vid chats with the dozens of Spectres every time they completed a task).

 _Well, this should prove a nice change of pace, at the least_. Ideally, this would be from the salarian agent Jondum Bau deployed in the Terminus—he'd missed his past two scheduled check ins. Sparatus would also have been interested in a progress report from T'Ysera and Vasir on their slaver hunt. _Just so long as it isn't_ …

He accessed the report and groaned inwardly as he saw the name "Lieutenant Commander Mark John Shepard" at the top. It seemed there was no escaping this particular human these days. At least he'd been able to format his first report correctly; Sparatus hadn't been sure if he'd be able to achieve that much.

With an irritable twitch of his mandibles, Sparatus began to read. The destruction of the geth that had somehow infiltrated a second human colony without the human state being aware of their presence did not particularly impress him—he could name several asari and salarian Spectres that would have been capable of the same feat, given a tank, and he liked to think that Saren, Nihlus, and Rohylus Nafrix all could've done it on foot.

What did stick out to him was Shepard's failure to give any indication of his planned next move, and the utter destruction of the Prothean site the asari research team had been working on. It wasn't unheard of for Spectres to not give specific place names in their reports, in case of interception, but it was bad form to not give at least a general outline of their plans. _He will need to be informed of that. Sharply, I'd hope_.

Similarly, it was not unusual for Spectres to leave behind a bit of collateral damage. But the utter destruction of a major Prothean ruin was something else entirely. That would also need to be enquired about, along with what precisely Shepard intended to do with his new prisoner.

In all, Sparatus thought, Shepard had performed adequately at best in his first engagement as a Spectre. Not poorly, but Sparatus did not see anything in the report indicative of a particularly standout warrior. Certainly not anything markedly more impressive than what the dozen or so turian recruits that had been passed over in favor of Shepard could have achieved.

Which brought the matter back to Tevos. She had been the one to ram through the human's appointment, just as she had been the one to give the humans every bit of aid they needed to expose Saren and thereby humiliate the Hierarchy.

 _She's up to something. While I would dearly like to know what, the first thing that must be done is remove her power to bypass me as she's been doing_.

That task would be relatively simple. Sparatus gazed at the human's report for a moment longer, clicking his mandibles thoughtfully, then closed it and opened a comm line.

A salarian voice spoke through the other end. "You have reached the offices of Councilor Valern, kindly state your business." _Amazing that after all this time, we still don't have a direct line to each other's offices outside of an emergency call among all three of us._ And he had no desire whatsoever for Tevos to know of this _._

"Kindly inform Councilor Valern that Councilor Sparatus wishes to meet with him at his earliest convenience, and awaits his return call."

 _ **1130 Hours AST, April 19, 2183**_

 _ **Salarian Embassy Suites, Second Floor, Council Tower**_

 _ **The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula**_

"Please, do come in." The door to Valern's office hissed open, and Sparatus strode inside, taking care to avoid a keeper in the hallway. There seemed to be even more of the Citadel's native waist high green insects than usual these days.

Stepping inside the room, Sparatus stood politely for a moment, then took the single seat in front of Valern's enormous wooden desk— _such a ridiculous affectation, that_ —and gazed across at his colleague, lounging like a CEO surveying an employee.

Sparatus wasn't remotely intimidated. He had been on the Citadel Council for twenty years (give or take a few months). Tevos had been there for eighty. Valern had been there for less than two, but that had been more than sufficient for Sparatus to gain a firm understanding of his newest salarian colleague.

Valern was twenty one years old: a ludicrously young age to hold so much power among any civilized species but the salarians, who even with the benefit of modern medicine could only expect to live to forty. Far more important to understanding him was his gender. The peculiarities of salarian biology meant that for every nine males that hatched, there was only one female. The females had long ago parlayed the value their rarity gave them into near total political dominance over salarian society, and in the modern era there were only two ways a male salarian could ever aspire to power in that sphere.

He could be so naturally brilliant and talented that the ruling dalatrasses (the salarian term for their empowered women) simply could not let him go to waste.

Or he could be a son of one of the many noble families of the Salarian Union who was so dense, so gullible, and so easily manipulated that he served as a perfect pawn in the endless power games the females played, and a perfect scapegoat if, as was likely, he screwed something up. _Amongst the cleverest race in the galaxy, stupidity is a valuable commodity_.

It had only taken the most cursory examination of his newest colleague's background, even before Valern arrived on the Citadel for the first time, for Sparatus to realize that he was the latter type.

Valern had been given the Council position by the currently dominant group of dalatrasses in salarian politics, among which was his elder sister. So far as Sparatus could determine, they had apparently believed that an easily manipulated pawn would have much less chance of acting independently of their own wishes.

In classically short-sighted salarian fashion, however, they had failed to realize that placing Valern on the Citadel, outside salarian space, only meant he would be manipulated by non-salarians… as Sparatus and Tevos had been doing for the last two years.

"Thank you for your time, Valern," Sparatus began politely as he settled into the guest chair. "I hope I didn't interrupt anything important." He was quite certain he hadn't; he'd made a surprise visit to Valern shortly after the salarian assumed office and caught him playing _Grand Terminus Alliance 2_. Still, it was as good a preamble as any.

"Not at all," Valern replied. "There is nothing that cannot be paused for a discussion with a fellow Councilor." Sparatus barely succeeded in keeping his mandibles from flaring in open derision.

"Have you had a chance to look at the latest Spectre report?"

"Agent Jorel's from the day before yesterday? Yes, I have. It seems he achieved a success in all facets of his mission, very impressive."

"There's actually been a new transmission," Sparatus cut in. It did not surprise him in the least that Valern had been too busy enslaving virtual quarians to hear a chime from his inbox. "Commander Shepard, the new human Spectre, made his first report half an hour ago; very recent, so it's perfectly understandable if you haven't been able to get to it."

"Ah. I see." Valern sat for a moment, clearly thinking. Then his large golden eyes narrowed. "I must warn you, Tarren, I will not entertain any discussion of revoking the Commander's status. That decision has been made." _Interesting._

"I beg your pardon?"

"Please. It's obvious. You were biased against him from the moment he made accusations against Saren. Now you're coming into my office in an attempt to twist his report into evidence of his incompetence so as to have him removed from the Spectres. I will not have it, I tell you!"

"I will admit, judging from this report, I do not believe the Commander's actions to be anything particularly astonishing," Sparatus said smoothly, accessing it on a datapad and sliding it across the table to Valern. "But neither are they evidence of incompetence. Shepard seems to have performed adequately, no more, no less. I see no reason to call for his disbarment from the Spectres at this time."

"Ah." Valern sat and thought for a moment more (not bothering to pick up the datapad). "My apologies."

"None are necessary. As a matter of fact, looking back at my attitude leading up to the Commander's appointment as a Spectre, it is entirely understandable that it might have seemed I was biased against the Commander, and _I_ apologize for _that_. The truth is, I was merely angered by the haste with which we were conducting all our affairs, both Saren's trial and Shepard's elevation, and the disrespect for proper procedure that was being shown." This was his opening. "There has never before been a Spectre admitted to the Office without first passing the minimum evaluation period of a month, until now."

"Well, yes, that is true," Valern admitted. "Still. Was it not obvious that Commander Shepard was eminently suited? Even discounting his actions on both Elysium and Akuze, his service record is impeccable."

"Indeed it is. Many candidates have had impeccable service records, right before they fail their evaluations. That is precisely why that final hurdle was instituted, was it not?"

"I believe so," Valern said, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. "Still. As was said at the time, it was by far the best solution. We had no other Spectre immediately available, and Tevos rightly pointed out that the Commander's elevation would prove politically beneficial to all parties." _So, her name pops up for the first time_.

"Valern." Sparatus deliberately gentled his voice, made it as urbane as he could. "Again, please do not misunderstand me. I do not wish to revoke the Spectre status of Commander Shepard; it is entirely possible that he may yet prove to be as great a credit to the office as any of our other agents. But Tevos had confirmed to me the day before the Alliance leveled their charges that we had no fewer than five Spectres awaiting their next assignment. As for Shepard's appointment pleasing everyone, I can show you-,"

"What! But that doesn't…. she told me just before the second emergency session that there was no one else available!" Valern exclaimed agitatedly, seemingly unaware that he had just confirmed that he and Tevos had planned their actions in that session beforehand.

"It seems our elegant colleague lied to you."

"What? Why would she do that?"

"Valern, I think it's time I shared something with you," Sparatus said, careful to keep his voice smooth and urbane. "Two years ago, just after your appointment to the Council, Tevos took me aside and told me that the Salarian Union had made an incredible error by allowing itself to be represented by a gullible halfwit." He conveniently failed to mention that he'd been in complete agreement with her. "Undoubtedly, she is trying to manipulate you toward her own ends."

Valern's gray skin had darkened approximately three shades in anger, and he was making incoherent strangling noises. _Now, the final touches_.

Sparatus held up a talon. "For my part, I am well aware that you are not a fool, and undoubtedly on at least some level she is as well. Why else would she have arranged Shepard's immediate entrance into the Spectres between the two of you just before that meeting? Why else would she have arranged to extend Saren's trial, regardless of what evidence was presented, just between the two of you? My friend, she knew that if you'd have been able to talk to me and hear both sides, you'd have immediately put two and two together!"

"That… that witch!" Valern finally spluttered. Sparatus observed him with some satisfaction; the salarian was now as angry as he'd ever seen him. "I'll be damned if I ever support one of her initiatives again!"

 _Perfect_. "Come now, Valern. You do not know what initiatives Tevos may propose. I should think you would be more than justified to support her if she decided to propose new sanctions on the batarians, for instance, Spirits know they need it." Sparatus allowed his face to assume a more thoughtful expression. "I will admit, her actions over the past few days have led me to suspect that she harbors some sort of plan to neuter the Hierarchy's power. I cannot trust her at the moment, no more than you can. For now, I believe it best that we work as one on all matters. Should Tevos come to you with a proposal, come to me before you answer. Together, we can check her ambition."

Valern still looked furious, but he gave his consent.

 **AN: Merry Christmas. You'd have had this a couple days earlier, particularly considering how short it turned out to be** , **but I got distracted with a few things, including but not limited to Christmas shopping, schoolwork, a 94 year old senile grandma, and the newest addition to GRRM's Westeros canon.**

 **Sparatus is the last of the POVs I'll be introducing, at least in my take on ME1. Councilor Airquotes is going to serve as our window onto the Council and why they do the things that they do.**

 **Ashley II is up next, and I can promise it's going to be much longer, and out fairly quickly, as in the next week or so. I have very little to do right now on break (with many of the aforementioned chores taken care of one way or another), and I intend to take advantage of it.**

 **Please, as always, review, favorite, and follow. Any criticism or thoughts are invaluable.**


	12. Ashley II

_**0245 Hours AST, April 24, 2183**_

 _ **Marine Compartment, Deck Three, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Interstellar Space**_

" _Attention all hands, this is your pilot speaking. We will be decelerating from FTL momentarily to make our grand entrance in the Matano system. Just so you're aware."_

Ten pairs of eyes flickered toward the PA hidden in the ceiling in unison, then just as quickly moved back down. They'd known that announcement was coming; it was why they were here.

"I've already sent all available information about the system, planet, and colony to your datapads," Lieutenant Alenko picked up his briefing again. "Feel free to look through it when we're done here, it'll be a couple of hours before we deploy even after we make it in system."

Ashley nodded absently; she'd already skimmed through some of it. Most of it was useless—"Matano" was a lake in Indonesia, though for some reason the system's planets were all named after Incan gods and goddesses; Chasca, their target planet, had a massive ring that was clearly artificial and only really visible from the ground. Some of it was only useful to scientists or pilots— Chasca had a radius of 8059 kilometers, had .88 of the gravity of Earth and only .86 of the atmosphere thickness, and was tidally locked to Matano; that was, the same side always faced the star. That side was a blasted desert, inhospitable to almost all known forms of life, and the night side was similarly a frozen wasteland.

But the terminator band, the border between the two sides, was hospitable enough to have developed life and its own ecology. Hospitable enough that the ExoGeni Corporation had decided to plop a fifty-two man pioneer team there approximately six months before, with the Alliance's blessing, to pave the way for a larger settlement in the near future.

All had seemed well, until almost five days ago, the pioneer team had failed a comm check. So now the _Normandy_ was going to save the colonists, if possible; if not, they were going to find out what had happened and kill the bastards responsible. _Why do I get the feeling that that's going to describe at least half of our missions on this ship?_

"ExoGeni claims to have no knowledge of why Chasca or Feros would have gone silent or would have been a target for geth," Lieutenant Alenko continued. "However, the Alliance was able to, ah, convince them to send us the basic layout of the Chasca outpost, which we received right before entering FTL for the system."

The LT tapped his omnitool, and a stationary three dimensional hologram appeared in the air between him and the rest of the Marines, seated on the edges of their cots. "As you can see, the Chasca outpost is laid out in a rough isosceles triangle, with buildings at the north, southwest, and southeast corners. It's approximately three quarters of a kilometer between the north building and the other two, a quarter of a klick between southwest and southeast. Vegetable patches inside the triangle."

"Unfortunately, without any idea of the opposition we're going to be facing or what the conditions on the ground are, we can't draw up any plans. The outpost could simply be experiencing a comm malfunction, in which case we'll simply land, send a couple engineers to help them fix it, then be on our way. Or the place could be a smoking crater defended by a dug in battalion of troops with antitank and antiair artillery, or anything in between." The _Normandy_ shuddered as it dropped out of FTL into the Matano system.

Lieutenant Alenko looked around at them all, sitting there in their fatigues (except for Alexei Dubyansky, who'd had guard duty over the asari prisoner and was already in his armor). "I'm going to go up to the CIC and help the Commander devise a plan of action. As soon as we've come up with one, I'll come back down and let you know. In the meantime, get your equipment on and stand ready in the vehicle bay." He closed the hologram on his omnitool and strode out of the compartment.

Behind him, the Marines got to their feet one by one and made ready to follow him. There wasn't much talk; it was the middle of the night shift, and aside from Dubyansky, they'd all been asleep when the LT had woken them up for the briefing. Ashley tried to stifle a yawn, and failed.

"Hey." As the Marines filed out into the corridor one by one, she felt a gentle prod in the shoulder. "You there?"

"… mostly," Ashley replied, not bothering to look back to identify who it was. "We can't all be morning people like you, Addy."

Lance Corporal Addison Chase had been with Commander Shepard and Lieutenant Alenko when they'd rescued Ashley on Eden Prime, and the two of them had quickly become fast friends. Addy, although she was several pay grades below Ashley, was only a year younger, and shared many of the same interests—like poetry, discussing the various men onboard, and the splattering sound when you blew a hostile's head off with a shotgun.

"Please, Ash," Addison said knowledgeably, moving up beside Ashley as they walked down the corridor and gathering up her dirty blond hair into a regulation knot from where it had spilled down onto her shoulders. Ashley moved to do the same with her own dark brown mess. "You got woken up at this hour every single day in Basic. Nah, you were distracted. Thinking about Commander Shepard again?"

Ashley flushed a pale pink, then immediately cursed herself for doing so. She really had been focusing on the LT's briefing with the parts of her mind that were fully awake, and not thinking about the Commander at all, but good luck convincing Addy about that now. _Particularly with all the times we_ have _been talking about him lately_.

As the Marines exited the corridor and spilled into the hangar, heading towards the lockers on the port side, Ashley flailed about looking for something that would distract Addison from this line of questioning. "I wasn't thinking about anything but the mission. Ignoring any part of that briefing might get me killed down there, and same for you." She took care to keep her voice down; they were only a few feet behind the rest of the Marines, and she did not want anyone to overhear this conversation.

Addison snorted in derision, though thankfully she too kept it down. "What briefing?" They reached the lockers (luckily, their lockers were right next to each other) and began stripping down to their underwear—the body gloves that went underneath their hardsuits couldn't be worn over clothing. "All the LT really said was 'We don't actually know anything about what's going on on this planet, I'll be back in half an hour to give you the real briefing, now go put your armor on.' Nope, sorry, girl, try again."

Ashley balled up her fatigues and shoved them in the locker. She still hadn't gotten used to how shockingly cold the hangar floor was on her bare feet; thankfully, she was only standing on it for a few seconds before she slipped into the body glove. "Okay, listen, _Corporal_ -,"

" _Corporal_ , is it?" Addy teasingly mimicked, sealing her standard issue green and tan boots on. "Don't try the 'regulations' crap, I'm not the one making eyes at her CO."

"What?!" Ashley hissed back at her, indignant and now fully awake, stopping short in her attempt to pull her heavy white chestplate out of the locker. "Just yesterday you were saying-,"

"Oh, yes, the Commander is very handsome and heroic and hunky and all the other nice things that start with 'h'," Addy said airily, smoothly putting on her own chestplate. "I wouldn't want to get involved with him, though. Have you seen all the media coverage he gets? Go near him, and kiss your privacy goodbye. Besides, personally, I think Alexei is cuter."

"No way. You're not serious." Ashley glanced over at the Russian Marine, who was leaning against a hangar support chatting with the other males, most of whom had already finished putting their armor on.

"Oh yes. And have you heard his accent? Mmhmm…"

From there, it devolved into an argument that lasted the better part of the next twenty minutes, conducted in hushed whispers for the sake of their fellows standing nearby. It wasn't like they had anything better to do; Addison had been right when she'd said Lieutenant Alenko's briefing had been vague. Until he and the Commander came and gave them more specifics and the actual plan, they might as well compare the attributes of their squadmates.

Ashley had just gotten Addison to concede that Commander Shepard could probably bench press at least half again Private Dubyansky's max when the elevator doors opened, and out walked the Commander himself, in company with Lieutenant Alenko.

Instantly, all frivolity was forgotten.

"Officer on deck!" someone barked, and all nine Marines on the hangar deck snapped into the position of attention. Out of the corner of her eye, Ashley noted the turian, Garrus Vakarian, and the krogan, Urdnot Wrex, in their usual places. Neither of them had stood to attention (or whatever their species' equivalents were), but they'd stopped what they were doing and were paying close attention to the human officers.

"At ease," the Commander said, and the Marines relaxed. "We have a bit of an unusual situation on our hands."

Commander Shepard was, Ashley noted with some concern, looking considerably more gaunt and haggard than he had on the Citadel or Eden Prime. Although she'd been on the same ship as him for almost two weeks now, she hadn't really gotten the opportunity to take a close look at him. Or had she, and she had just inexplicably failed to notice the shadows under his gray eyes and the stubble on his cheeks? Either way, those things were very definitely there now.

Tired he may have been, but the Commander's voice betrayed no hint of it as he began to speak. "Alright, people, I have good news, even better news, and bad news. The good news is that, unlike Therum, there is no hostile presence in orbit. The even better news is that relatively clear weather over the target area of Chasca's terminator has also allowed us to take scans of the ground at a much greater range than we were able to at Therum, and we can detect no hostile presence there either. In addition to not being shot at, this means we will also be able to land the _Normandy_ and disembark the entire team."

Several of the Marines cheered at that last bit, Addison among them. Ashley wanted to cheer as well; sitting aboard the _Normandy_ while the Commander risked his life on Therum with nothing but three aliens backing him up had been the single most frustrating experience of her life to date. But there was one more piece of news.

She raised her hand. "Commander Shepard? Sir? What's the bad news?"

The Commander's face was bleak. "The bad news, Williams, is that we cannot detect any sign of the pioneer colonists either. None of them are visible on our pictures of the outpost area, and there are no energy signatures in any of the three buildings there. Nobody answered any of our hails on commercial or military frequencies. We picked up something on one of the bands reserved for automated distress calls, but it was so damaged and distorted that even when we scrubbed it it didn't make any sense."

The cheers abruptly died. Commander Shepard moved forward, raised his left arm, and tapped a command into his omnitool, which glowed and projected the same image of the outpost that the LT's had earlier in the Marine compartment. "Lieutenant Alenko tells me he's already given you the basic details of the Chasca outpost's layout. The _Normandy_ will deploy us in two teams a half klick to the south of the triangle, then take off and loiter overhead to provide air support should any be needed." The Commander paused, then waved over the krogan and turian. "Wrex will be on my team, along with Williams, Chase, Dubyansky, and Breazale. The rest of you will go with Lieutenant Alenko and Garrus. Are there any questions about the team assignments?"

The word _Yes_ hovered on the tip of Ashley's tongue. She'd seen more than enough of Urdnot Wrex during the hunt for Fist and the quarian. The krogan was a berserker and loose cannon like the rest of his kind. He couldn't be trusted, no more than could the turian. A turian! _After all Grandfather went through fighting those asswagons, now we're letting them poke around on our most advanced warship?_ She still couldn't fathom the Commander's reasons for that.

 _But he does have his reasons. He's the Lion of Elysium, the Hero of the Blitz, you saw what he can do, you've seen it yourself three times now. He doesn't make mistakes. Right?_ Besides, he'd also put Addy on the team.

Ashley said nothing. Neither did most of the other Marines, though from their faces she could tell that several of them wanted to protest as much as she did.

Dubyansky, however, raised his hand. "Sir, if you are bringing me, who will guard the asari?"

"No one. She is no threat to us. The only reason we've had a guard on the medbay the past few days is to prevent anyone from threatening her, but Doctor Chakwas has assured me she can handle that by herself. In any case," Commander Shepard continued, heading off thunderstruck exclamations from Dubyansky, Addison, and several of the others, "that's irrelevant to the task in front of us. If you want to complain, come find me when you're off duty."

Ashley barely heard him. _Of course she's a threat to us! She's the daughter of our enemy's right hand, and you had to dig her out from behind a swarm of geth protecting her!_ For the second time in thirty seconds she had no clue what her Commander was thinking, or why he seemed so utterly blasé about all the aliens now apparently roaming free over his ship. The vids definitely hadn't mentioned anything about this side of him.

"Once deployed, my team will move to thoroughly investigate the building at the southeastern corner of the triangle. Lieutenant Alenko's team will do the same at the southwestern one. Standard comms protocols apply; keep off the radio unless you come into hostile contact or find something particularly important. Once each team is done investigating, it will move north along the legs of the triangle, kindly staying out of the vegetable gardens. We will rendezvous at the north building and sweep it together. Questions, comments, concerns about the plan?"

Nobody spoke up this time.

"Much better. We'll be deploying in approximately an hour and a half; if you want something to eat, go up to the galley and grab it now. No steak and eggs, this isn't a big enough occasion for that, but I believe we do have pancakes. I expect you all back here by 0430. Dismissed."

After a moment's hesitation, four of the other Marines moved toward the elevator. Ashley followed them. She'd seen enough combat by this point to know that, nervous or not, you would need every bit of energy you could get.

Even if you saw things that made you want to bring it all right back up.

 _ **0420 Hours AST, April 24, 2183**_

 _ **Vehicle Bay, Deck Three, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Low Orbit of Planet Chasca, Matano System, Maroon Sea Cluster**_

The _Normandy_ shuddered as it worked its way north along the terminator band and lower into the atmosphere. Although the habitable zone of Chasca was much, much calmer than that on other tidally locked worlds, there were still vicious winds at high altitude as the air from the day side collided with that from the night side.

Ashley leaned against one of the hangar supports and stifled a belch. Normally, she didn't get carsick or airsick… but normally she didn't get shaken around quite this violently _. If Joker can't get us below this turbulence within the next three minutes, I am going to go up to the cockpit and puke my pancakes all over him_.

Fortunately for Joker, approximately two minutes and twenty four seconds later, the _Normandy_ 's shaking subsided.

As her stomach settled, Ashley moved over to the weapon rack and picked up her Avenger assault rifle, as well as a belt of grenades _. We're starting to run low on grenades already, and we really haven't seen much combat_. The Commander would need to stock up on ordnance soon.

Thankfully, her Avenger had a full ammo block, and being the person responsible for the armory, she had made personally sure that it was in perfect working condition. She tapped the button to compact it into its carrying mode, and slotted it onto its carrying hardpoint on her back.

The elevator doors opened to disgorge the last few stragglers from breakfast, those who'd lingered to stuff down an extra pancake or two. She didn't particularly envy them in an hour or two, but regardless, her job as armory chief now came into play. As each of the stragglers came to her, she issued them their weapons for the upcoming mission—two Avengers and a Katana shotgun.

That done, she tucked her helmet under her arm and followed them over to the other side of the hangar, where everyone else was clustered around the Mako.

"Is this everyone? Okay, good," Commander Shepard said.

The Commander was leaning against the hull of the Mako, in his black armor with the N7 insignia over his left breast and the N7 bloodstripe down his right arm. His own helmet was in his hand, with a Katana slung in the small of his back and the butt of a Mattock battle rifle poking up over his shoulder. Despite her misgivings over his eagerness to trust the aliens which kept showing up, Ashley couldn't help but be awed all over again at the sight of Commander Shepard in full battle dress, so obviously a hero from head to heel.

"Joker, what's our ETA?" he said, seemingly asking the question of empty air.

" _We're currently at seventy five hundred feet in the air and forty miles due south of Chasca Outpost, Commander,"_ Joker's voice replied over the intercom _. "Estimate arrival in nine minutes._ "

"Fair enough. When we've deployed, establish a slow orbital pattern over the outpost, staying within GARDIAN range in case we call for support."

When Joker had acknowledged and signed off, the Commander turned back to everyone else, who had arranged themselves in a loose semicircle around him and the Mako.

"Last minute instructions, so we don't have to waste any time once we're there; the instant the ramp touches dirt, I want us moving. Primary purpose is to look for civilian survivors; nothing we've seen so far says we'll find any, but if we do, their survival is of the highest priority. Secondary purpose is to obtain any evidence that might shed light on what's going on down there. Got it?" Ashley, Addison, and everyone else chorused their agreement.

Nine minutes, Joker had said, but somehow that tiny period of time seemed to take an eternity. When the hangar door finally rumbled and began to lower, Ashley was more than ready to get on the ground. She moved toward the lowering ramp, and stopped short.

The _Normandy_ still hadn't touched down, though she estimated it was only a couple of hundred feet in the air and descending further every second, as it skimmed over a sea of verdant grasses toward a cluster of white specks in the distance that she guessed must be Chasca Outpost. It would probably be less than thirty seconds before they touched down and deployed, though she wasn't paying much mind to that. As the rest of the team moved onto the lowering ramp, Ashley gazed at the vista of Chasca spread out before her.

She hadn't been quite sure what to expect from her first sight of the surface of the planet; the survey data that Lieutenant Alenko had sent to their datapads hadn't included any pictures, and hadn't said much of anything regarding flora or fauna besides "Chasca's terminator band has evolved a unique biosphere that is barely catalogued or understood." It hadn't remotely prepared her for this.

The view from the _Normandy_ 's hangar looked out onto a sea of grass and wildflowers stretching for as far as the eye could see, broken up by rocky outcroppings, the occasional clump of trees, and the buildings of Chasca Outpost, now clearly visible in a valley between two particularly large outcroppings.

All of it was bathed in an eternal twilight. Every planet in the Matano system was named after an Incan god or goddess, Ashley recalled. _Chasca_ had been the deity of dusk and dawn. Only now, seeing the surface of the terminator spread out before her, did she realize how appropriate it was. The first stars were peeking over the horizon, as they had been for every minute since the planet's formation, and Chasca's great artificial ring lay superimposed over them, gleaming and glittering. The sparkles of light and shadow it emitted danced over the buildings of the outpost. They were standard pioneer barracks that Ashley had already seen half a dozen times in various places, large, blocky, and plain white, but in the semi-darkness they almost seemed to glow.

It was breathtakingly beautiful. _A garden at twilight. I think Byron wrote a poem about something like this. Or was it Thoreau? I know it wasn't Tennyson, as much as I love him_ …

"Ash! What the heck are you doing?!"

Addison's hiss brought her abruptly back to reality. The _Normandy_ had arrived at the drop zone, and was gracefully hovering with the tip of the ramp just inches above the dirt. Lieutenant Alenko's team was already thirty yards away, with their weapons at port arms, and getting further away every second. Ashley could pick out the distinct shape of the turian, Garrus Vakarian, among them.

Her own squad was clustered at the base of the ramp, staring incredulously back up at her. Beyond embarrassed, Ashley hurried down to join them, putting her own helmet on to hide her rapidly reddening face.

"Was there a specific part of 'I want to move the instant the ramp touches dirt' that you didn't understand, Williams?" Commander Shepard inquired mildly. Dubyansky and Breazale were still staring at her, Urdnot Wrex had bared his massive rows of jagged teeth in what was probably a krogan smirk, and Addy was shaking in a fit of silent giggles.

"Sir! No, Sir!"

The Commander sighed. "Just try to keep your head in the game, Williams. Okay, now that we're all here and paying attention, let's move out. Wrex, you take point, Breazale, you bring up the rear. Diamond formation. Williams, you're our medic, so you stay in the center. Move." Suddenly, Ashley liked his trusting and forgiving attitude a lot more.

The squad set out towards the gleaming white barracks in the distance, the hulking shape of the krogan leading the way. Addy had the right flank, Dubyansky the left, while Ash herself was firmly ensconced in the middle. If she hadn't known it was standard Alliance practice to put the designated medic there, she might've thought the Commander was trying to avoid putting her in a position of responsibility. That, and he was right there beside her.

It was intoxicating. Humanity's greatest living hero, who'd personally saved her life twice already, there, right _there_ , prowling through the knee-high grass with a starlit twilight sky behind him, alertly scanning the buildings ahead of them for any sign of motion… _Ash. You're getting distracted again. Stop it_.

Ashley hurriedly refocused, though thankfully nobody else in the squad seemed to have noticed her repeated lapse in attention this time, not even the Commander. A breeze whispered through the lush grass around her legs, setting it to whispering and carrying a lovely fragrance (her helmet was over her head but she hadn't engaged the seals), but this time she determinedly ignored it. She looked ahead at the buildings of Chasca Outpost, ignoring the beauty of the scene and closely examining them for the first time.

They were, as she'd noted from the top of the Normandy's ramp, standard pioneer all-in-one barracks, a combination of tool shed, storage warehouse, vehicle garage, and living quarters that were standard for Alliance colonial pioneer teams and had a habit of turning up in the inventory of pirates who wanted to establish bases on remote, out of the way planets. Only two of them were visible at the moment, facing inwards towards the vegetable patches that she remembered took up the center of the outpost.

The squad was, as per the plan, currently heading from the south towards the right-hand building of the complex—Lieutenant Alenko's squad was now barely visible through the gloom away to the left as they headed towards their own target. The back of the building seemed normal as they approached it… except for one thing.

"Commander? Sir?" She stayed off the comm channels, as per orders, but still had to raise her voice slightly to be heard over the murmuring of the sea of grass as the wind moved through it. "Aren't those air intakes at the back of the building?"

"Yes, they are, Williams."

"They're not supposed to have gunk coming out of them, are they?"

"No. No, they are not." His voice was flat and carefully neutral, but Ashley could not suppress a shiver from going down her spine. _Something is very wrong here._ Suddenly, the whispering of the grass around her seemed a lot more menacing.

As they reached their target building, the diamond formation collapsed, and everyone clustered together against the wall. Ashley found herself between Addison and Commander Shepard, and directly below one of the air intake vents in the building.

Seen up close, the "gunk" looked like nothing so much as seaweed. Looking up at the strips of it hanging limply down, black against the white walls of the barracks, Ashley could swear she smelled a faint stench coming off the vegetation, though it was too faint to identify beyond that it was foul.

"Commander… why is that there? What do you think is inside?" Addison quietly asked.

The Commander's gray eyes were unreadable through his helmet visor as he too gazed up at the plant matter. "I have no idea, Corporal. As for what's inside there, I have no idea, except that it's almost certainly not geth, and is almost certainly very unpleasant." He lowered his head and studied the wall itself. "That air intake leads to a storage room at the back of the building. Colonists tend to stick seeds and other farming equipment there, it opens internally onto the main floor garage."

Ashley saw that he was right. The section of the wall that they were huddled up against bulged out from the rest of the back of the building, clearly a separate compartment. _Seeds? What's going on here, the Attack of the Killer Kudzu?_

The Commander gestured with his free hand (the other holding his shotgun), and they moved quietly in single file around the eastern wall of the building. The surface of Chasca stretched out to her right, a vast sea of whispering grass, but Ashley kept her Avenger locked tight in her fist and her gaze locked on the backs of Commander Shepard and Urdnot Wrex in front of her.

Halfway along the wall, as they came to the large door of the garage, the krogan stopped, causing Commander Shepard to nearly run into him. "What is it, Wrex—ah." Ashley moved up behind them.

The man and the krogan were gazing at the bottom of the garage door. Strips of vegetation, just like the ones that had been growing out of the air intakes though not as long, protruded out from beneath it. Ashley felt Addison, Dubyansky, and Breazale crowd up behind her.

There was a long, pregnant pause. "High time we found out what's in there," Commander Shepard decided. "Keep moving around to the front, Wrex."

They rounded the corner to the front of the pioneer barracks. Before them, a sea of vegetables, bounded on all three sides by gravel paths, stretched away to the lonely shape of the northern barracks, hunched three quarters of a kilometer away.

Closer stood the shape of the southwestern barracks. Squinting through the half-light, Ashley thought she could make out the shapes of Lieutenant Alenko's squad there.

"Alenko, are your men in position?" Commander Shepard's voice sounded quietly in her ear as he opened up comms.

"Aye, Commander. Front door is out of power and sealed, like we guessed from orbit."

The Commander moved forward to the door of their own building, set in a recess, and briefly inspected it. "Same here, Alenko. Any ideas?"

"Armory back on board was lacking in breaching charges, Commander. Another thing you'll need to requisition. I may be able to knock the door in with my biotics."

The Commander paused briefly in front of the door, his helmeted head cocked. "Good idea, Alenko. Did your building have plant material growing out of the air intakes out back?"

"Aye, Commander. Strangest thing I've seen since… well, since Eden Prime and its robot zombies."

Commander Shepard quietly chuckled. It sounded out of place, amidst the whispering of the vegetables and the grasses. "True that, Kaidan. Blow the door down, but stay on your guard—there's something very nasty in these buildings and I doubt it's going to welcome us with open arms."

"Understood, Commander." Ashley heard a click in her ear as the LT closed the comm channel.

The Commander squared himself up with the door of the pioneer barracks and tensed. A halo of blue light began to gather about his clenched right fist.

"Shepard."

The Commander looked at Urdnot Wrex in surprise, unclenching his fist and letting his arm drop. "Wrex. Something you wanted to say?"

"Just that you'd be smart to let me go in first, Shepard." The krogan, alone of them, wasn't wearing a helmet (his hide and natural plates were more than thick enough to stop most projectiles on their own), and his teeth were bared in another vicious grin. "I'm a biotic too, and this isn't the first door I've knocked down."

Commander Shepard paused briefly, then shrugged. "Go on, then, Wrex." He stood aside to let the krogan have a clear shot at the door, as Ashley, Addy, and the male Marines took up positions with their rifles at the ready.

Urdnot Wrex moved within five feet of the door, then shifted his massive Claymore shotgun to his left hand. He drew back his own right arm, sparkling blue, then thrust it forward.

The sealed door of the pioneer barracks buckled with a screech. The krogan's biotic blast had hit it dead center—not blowing it completely off its tracks, but bending it almost double, so that only the top of the door stayed where it was and kept it in place. Its sides had been wrenched out of place, leaving foot and a half wide gaps and allowing the air from within to escape.

The stench was incredible, what Ashley had smelled on the strands at the back of the barracks but a thousand times stronger. The air from within the building smelled of stagnant water, mold, battery acid, rust…

 _And human blood. Yep, definitely blood in there too_. Her helmet hadn't been sealed; she quickly chinned the button in its bottom to correct that. The canned air of her hardsuit wasn't pleasant, but it was vastly better than the reek coming from inside the barracks.

Urdnot Wrex didn't bother to hit the door with another biotic blast. The krogan marched up to it, bent his entire body backwards at the knees, and then to Ashley's astonishment, launched a thundering head butt at the top of the door with all the weight of his massive body behind it.

The door flew backwards into the darkness of the barracks with another screech.

Nobody moved for a moment. Ashley cast a look over her shoulder, to the north over the vegetable fields. High in the sky, the small shape of the _Normandy_ drifted in front of Chasca's ring, powerless to aid them against whatever was inside the building.

"Low light filters on," the Commander ordered curtly. Ashley activated the filter with a flick of her eyes inside her helmet, and watched a wash of iridescent green soak her HUD. "Wrex, go on in. We'll follow."

Urdnot Wrex rolled his shoulders, then marched into the pioneer barracks. Commander Shepard leveled his Katana and followed.

Her turn. Ashley could feel the eyes of her three fellow Marines on her. She raised her Avenger to her shoulder and moved after the Commander and the krogan.

Even with the night-vision filter on in her HUD, her eyes took a second to adjust to the darkness inside the barracks. They were standing in an antechamber of sorts, ten feet long by thirty feet wide, having entered on the right side. On her initial visual sweep, Ashley noted a door in the opposite corner, yawning open onto the vehicle garage that took up most of the main floor of these prefab buildings.

She heard Addy, Dubyansky, then Breazale cautiously enter behind her. She visually swept the antechamber again; no sign of any hostiles, except…

A switchboard was set into the wall just opposite the door they'd come in. It was sparking, damaged, clearly nonfunctional. Ashley moved up next to Wrex, who was standing not far from their entrance, and peered more closely at the switchboard.

It had been raked by claws. Large ones, what looked like a set of four, with slash marks running diagonally from right to left. Ashley felt her skin crawl. _Why couldn't it just be pirates_?

Then she realized she hadn't seen the Commander since he entered the antechamber. Spinning on her heel, she looked again.

He was standing in the exact center of the room, his shotgun at his shoulder and trained at the corner next to the door leading into the main area of the building, completely motionless. That must've been why she'd missed him on her first couple of scans.

Her first reaction was one of relief. Then she looked closer at where his weapon was pointing.

There was a human squatting in the far corner.

Or, at least, it looked like a human at first glance. But as Ashley took a few tentative steps toward where Commander Shepard stood, her rifle butt jammed into her shoulder, she realized that that couldn't be right.

For one thing, it didn't seem to be breathing. It was seemingly naked, emaciated-looking, squatting on its haunches, completely motionless, only its feet touching the floor but not a quiver from its too-skinny muscles, its back bent double and its head between its knees, and its hands covering its head…

 _Its hands_.

No human (or asari) had hands like those.

They didn't have fingers. They had talons, bone white even in the sickly green glow of Ashley's HUD, nearly a foot long, four of them.

And even as the thought settled in her head, the… thing… stirred, and began to stand, with a guttural groan that seemed to issue both from it and the walls at once.

Where an instant before there had been an eerie, suspense-filled silence, the antechamber erupted with flashes of light and noise as four assault rifles and two shotguns opened up within microseconds of each other.

The creature barely managed to unfold to its full height, what looked like almost six feet, before it was torn to shreds by weapons fire. Chunks of goo and gray matter spattered the corner and the doorway where the thing had crouched. _Please, Jesus, don't let it be able to recombine itself or something_.

It didn't. A ringing silence descended, for a heartbeat, then was broken by Addison. "What in the name of God's crabby-,"

Another low, guttural groan echoed from the garage. And another, and another.

The Commander reacted instantly. "Semicircle around the garage entrance! Chokepoint them!" The order was shouted over the squad net; there was no point in silence anymore.

Mere seconds after they had moved into position, more of the things boiled from the darkness of the garage. They ran hunched over, their arms open and extended, bizarrely looking like they wanted to give the Marines a hug. One of them, two, five, nine, a dozen.

There were five humans and an angry krogan arrayed around the doorway that the creatures were coming through. Just as Commander Shepard had intended, the crossfire ripped them to shreds. Of the fourteen things that ran out of the interior of the barracks, only one got through.

It pushed through the carnage at the doorway, taking a blast from Commander Shepard's shotgun and two slugs from Private Dubyansky's rifle, but not enough to drop it. It treaded over two of its fellows, and made a beeline for Urdnot Wrex, anchoring the right end of their semicircle against the wall. The krogan had just blasted another of the creatures in half with his Claymore shotgun, and had ejected the spent thermal clip from the gun (a single blast from the Claymore generated so much heat that it used an entire clip in one shot). Before he could reload the weapon, or punch, or headbutt, the creature halted less than three feet in front of him.

It didn't leap on him and try to slash at him with its talons. Instead it arched its back, emitted a gurgling sound… and _puked_ a stream of noxious sludge all over Urdnot Wrex's unhelmeted head.

The krogan roared in pain, dropping his shotgun, staggering back, and pawing at his eyes. _Acid!_

The creature still did not leap upon him. Instead it turned towards Ashley, who was next in line just a few feet away, in puke range herself, and just for a second, as she brought her Avenger into line, she finally got a clear look at its head.

Not its face—there wasn't one. Two sightless sockets, with no suggestion that eyes had ever filled them. No ears, or nose, or any other recognizable features save the mouth, open in an "O", obscenely dribbling green slime.

She dropped half a clip into the abomination and pulped its head, along with its neck for good measure.

Another silence fell, this one lasting for longer than after they'd killed the first monster. After ten seconds had passed, Ashley let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "I think we're clear, Commander."

"Williams, check on Wrex," the Commander ordered, lowering his weapon. "Make sure to stay out of any blood pools on the ground. That goes for the rest of you, too."

Ashley was slightly taken aback by his second instruction. _Why would that be particularly important?_ She looked at the nearest green puddle on the ground, and saw to her disbelief that its edges were smoking. _They even have acid for blood?! How the heck are we supposed to get into the garage, then?_

Somewhat reluctantly, she turned to examine Urdnot Wrex, stepping gingerly closer to the injured krogan. Apart from the fact that krogan in pain were notoriously… unstable, she'd never given first aid to one before. She wasn't at all certain she had the correct supplies in her kit.

She needn't have worried. As she carefully approached, the krogan's massive head turned towards her. "You can keep your syringes, human girl."

Part of Ashley wanted to get offended at that, but she ignored the jibe—pain could break any composure, she'd been taught in Combat Lifesaver School. "Are you sure?"

Urdnot Wrex certainly didn't look all right. The creature's corrosive vomit had mostly splashed over the left side of his face, and that side looked even more hideous than normal. The acid had eaten away at his hide (Ashley could see the underlying muscle in at least three places), and his left eye had gone from bloodred to milky white, clearly blind.

But the krogan merely bared his teeth at her. "Why wouldn't I be? I've had worse than this dozens of times. I'll have regenerated all my skin within a few hours, and I'll have full sight in my eye again by this time tomorrow." He bent down and retrieved his Claymore. "Getting that crap sprayed in my face took me by surprise, but I'm fine. Now go check on your fellow humans, maybe one of them stubbed their toe."

 _Okay then_. Ashley turned and moved to the Commander and her fellow Marines, who had clustered near the entrance, carefully avoiding the lime green blood puddles. Whether any of them had stubbed their toe she couldn't say, but they all seemed free of any notable injury to her, which was a minor miracle.

 _Or maybe not_. The things had been creepy as all hell, and really still were— _that's actually a good name for them, "creepers"_ —but replaying the fight in her head, Ashley realized how little a threat they actually were to trained soldiers. No tactics beyond a blind charge, no weapon with a range greater than a few feet, no shielding or armor whatsoever. _Now that we know what to expect, they can't hurt us as long as we pay attention_.

She said as much to Commander Shepard.

"Probably," the Commander said. "Although we haven't completed the mission yet, Williams. But regardless of how easy it may have been for us, I can guarantee it was a lot different for a bunch of unarmed civilians when these 'creepers' suddenly popped up in the middle of the barracks with no warning." He bent down and began to carefully examine one of the drier pieces of creeper flesh.

"Commander Shepard, how can you be so sure these animals came from within the barracks?" Dubyansky asked.

"The front door was sealed, Dubyansky, do you honestly think these things are capable of closing and locking a door? They definitely didn't knock a hole in the wall either. And I wouldn't be quite so quick to call them 'animals'."

The Commander didn't offer any further explanation of his last statement _. What is he talking about? They certainly aren't people_. Instead, he flicked the piece of creeper flesh away and stood back up. "There's only one way to find out where they did come from."

All six of them were now standing directly in front of the entrance to the barracks' garage, its largest open space, but even with her lowlight filter on Ashley could see very little of what was inside. Not because of lack of light, there were skylights in the building's roof, but because there were large cargo containers and vehicles obstructing all but a fraction of the garage's floor.

There were also pieces of around eight or nine dead creepers in the doorway, with an appropriately large pool of acid blood.

Commander Shepard merely said "Stand back," took a few paces backwards, then took a running leap that carried him over the mess in the door and into the garage, then turned and gestured for them to follow.

One by one, they did.

The jump was a bit more hairy for Ashley than for the others, on account of her heavier armor, but she managed it, albeit with her heels a scant few millimeters from the blood pool. Addy and Breazale caught her arms as she landed and helped her keep from falling backwards.

Once she'd regained her balance, Commander Shepard gestured for them to follow him deeper into the garage. His head was moving slightly, as if he was talking to someone—probably the LT over the radio. _Hopefully they made out all right._ Lieutenant Alenko's team didn't have a medic on it.

The team threaded their way through the various vehicles—forklifts, tractors, a roadgrader that would have been used for construction when colonization began in earnest—and cargo containers cluttering the garage. The same plant matter that had been growing out of the air intakes and from under the vehicle door was here too, but it wasn't just a few strands. The stuff was everywhere: on the walls, on the floor in great mats, climbing up the tires and treads of construction vehicles to slip into their cabins, tendrils curling under the lids of containers. It was thicker in some places than in others. Here it spread in a large smooth mat, there it congested in a large lump, here only a few seeking strands crawled over the permacrete floor.

The Commander led them to an aisle running straight through the middle of the neatly parked vehicles, pausing occasionally to carefully step on some of the vegetation and look at the imprint his boot had left; yet another thing Ashley couldn't understand. Once they had all assembled in the clear space, he motioned them to gather around him.

"I've been in contact with Lieutenant Alenko," Commander Shepard said without preamble. "There were roughly the same amount of creepers in their building as in ours, and they successfully dealt with them. No fatalities, but Crosby and Pakti got drenched in acid vomit; Pakti in particular got the worst of it. His chestplate was melted into uselessness and his body glove was compromised. He's got slight acid burns over his upper torso. It's not life threatening and they gave him morphine, but you're going to take a look at him when we rendezvous to be on the safe side, Williams."

"Understood, sir," Ashley replied instantly. "Should I leave now?" She didn't want to, but if a casualty needed her help she wouldn't have a choice.

"Negative, Williams, he's in pain but he's still walking. He'll be fine for another half hour or so."

"Did the LT's team find any civilians, sir?" Breazale wanted to know.

The Commander made an odd noise. Through his helmet it sounded like something that might have been a laugh, if its mother hadn't abused drugs and alcohol during pregnancy and randomly beaten it within an inch of its life throughout its childhood. "They absolutely did, Private, just like us." In answer to the squad's confused questions, he raised an arm and pointed to the nearest lump of vegetation.

Ashley looked. It still seemed to be just a clump of leaves and stems and vines. Then she looked again, and the lump seemed almost to rearrange itself in front of her eyes.

Those were the bones of a forearm, with scraps of rotting meat and cloth still clinging to them. That was a ribcage, with tendrils curling in and out. That was a skull, talon marks clearly visible at its temple.

She lifted her gaze. She could see another lump partially concealed by a forklift, and she recalled having passed two more since they'd entered the garage.

"We're splitting into three groups of two," Commander Shepard said quietly. "Dubyansky and Chase, you're going to inspect every inch of the ground floor and any other rooms other than the storage room at the back. You will count every body you see and mark them if possible. Keep an eye out for any computer system or anything that might contain records of shipments received by the pioneer team. Wrex, Breazale, you're going to take those stairs," he indicated a doorway about a dozen yards away set into the wall, "and do the same in the living quarters upstairs. Be wary, there may be some dormant creepers up there that didn't hear the gunfire when we came in. If you see any, shoot them immediately."

"Williams, you're with me. We're going to check the storage room."

The squad chorused their acknowledgement and broke up as ordered; Wrex and Breazale turned toward the staircase, Addy and Dubyansky retraced their steps back into the parked vehicles.

The Commander walked straight down the aisle, Ashley a few steps behind. At the far wall, another door stood open, leading onto a space that was as dark as the antechamber had been. The plant matter was thickest there, carpeting the walls and floor around the doorway so thickly that no artificial material was visible.

Part of her, absurdly, was giddy that Commander Shepard had chosen _her_ as his partner, not any of the others, _her_! The rest of her told that part to shut the fuck up and pay attention to her surroundings—they were heading into the heart of the infestation in this building, though she was still trying to figure out precisely what the infestation was.

"Figured it out yet, Williams?" the Commander asked, in that same quiet, detached voice that he'd been using most of the time they'd been inside. Their footsteps had faded to silence as they approached the entrance to the storage room, muffled by the vegetation carpeting the ground.

"Sir? Figured what out?"

"What they are."

They reached the entrance to the storage room. The Commander took three steps inside, then stopped, looking down at the floor just inside. Ashley followed him.

At first, she thought it was another dead pioneer. It was a human shaped lump, just as all the others had been, this one face down and spread eagled. The vines and strips of vegetation were even thicker here than they'd been on the other corpses, knotted and tangled and weaved so tightly that not a hint of clothing or rotting flesh could be seen. The plant matter had taken on an odd quality that hadn't been present on the previous bodies, though—grayish, somehow both slicker in texture and duller in color.

Then she saw the four stubby, half formed white talons on its hands, and she knew.

"It's a-,"

"-creeper," the Commander finished, pushing her rifle back down before she could shoot. "Don't bother wasting ammo on it," he added, seeing the incredulous look in her eyes through her visor. "It's no threat to us yet, it's not finished growing. We'll deal with it soon enough."

"These things are _plants_?!" Through the ceiling, they heard the muffled thump of a shotgun blast, followed by a short rattle of rifle fire.

"The chunk of one I looked at back in the entranceway looked more like a piece from a rosebush or honeysuckle vine than any animal's flesh I've ever seen. If I had to guess, I'd say they're this species' equivalents of fruits or berries."

Ashley found herself at a loss for words. Commander Shepard lifted his eyes from the unripe creeper at their feet. "Colonists store seeds, non-perishable food items, and farming equipment here." He scanned the room, then began carefully stepping towards the far corner of the room, where a thicket of plant matter covered the various boxes and containers that were to have fed the pioneer team.

"This plant obviously sprouted here in this room. It's thickest back here, and thinner the further away you get." He stopped in the corner, almost waist deep in vegetation. He bent over, pushing, pulling, tearing at the vines and tendrils, digging, looking for something _. Looking for the source_. Commander Shepard braced his back and pulled, trying to drag something out of the rustling plants.

He stopped pulling for a moment, then gave an almighty tug, and with a tearing sound, something came free. The Commander overbalanced and fell over into the thicket of plants; Ashley hurried over and helped him back to his feet, and together they looked at his prize.

It was a box, but different from all the other ones they'd seen in the barracks. It was a shiny silver where the others had been dull white, and although it was crumpled and ruptured by the woody vines as thick as Ashley's forearm that led back into the mess of vegetation, a symbol was visible on its side: a narrow black hexagon with a gap at the bottom, and two bent golden bars parallel to its sides and bottom.

"No, I don't know what that symbol means," Commander Shepard said before Ashley could ask, "but I am absolutely going to find out. Take a couple pictures with your omnitool, we're not dragging it out of this mess." He looked around at the overgrown storage room.

"We'll need to hope a backup generator and intact computer system survived in one of these three buildings, so we can find out where this thing came from, but I think I can figure out what happened once it got here. The colonists didn't know what to do with it, so they stuck it in the back of the storage room and forgot about it. In short order, maybe overnight, the seeds or cuttings inside this box grew out and put tendrils into the nearest boxes of food and seeds. Once they'd gotten enough nutrients, they grew a creeper. It would only have taken one."

He looked over at Ashley. "Got the pics, Williams?" When she nodded, he threw the box back down. "We're done here, Gunnery Sergeant." He turned and headed back towards the door into the garage, with her on his heels.

When he reached it, he paused and extended a hand to her. Ashley nearly took it with her own before sanity reasserted control. "Grenade." She unhooked one from her belt, then watched as he twisted it apart, replaced its color coded red high explosive core with a bright orange one from a pouch at his own belt—thermite—then reassembled it.

Without saying another word, he armed it, tossed it back into the storage room, and ran back up the aisle into the garage, Ashley running after him, as a gout of flame erupted behind them.

 _ **0640 Hours AST, April 24, 2183**_

 _ **Northern Pioneer Barracks, Chasca Outpost**_

 _ **Chasca, Matano System, Maroon Sea Cluster**_

"You idiotic-,"

Ashley jammed a second syringe of morphine into Private Silas Crosby's neck. He was on the verge of going into shock, if he hadn't already.

"-fucking asswitted-,"

When Lieutenant Alenko's squad had encountered creepers in the southwest barracks, both Crosby and Private Abishek Pakti had been doused in acid vomit. It had corroded the chestpieces of both of their hardsuits into uselessness, including the inbuilt medigel conduits, and had started to eat away at the body gloves and then the flesh underneath.

Pakti, sensibly, had ripped the remains of his chestpiece off before he could sustain more than minor burns. When the two squads had rendezvoused at the northern building, Ashley had needed only a brief glance and a dab of medigel onto his shoulder to deal with the worst of his injuries.

"-stupid, arrogant, nut-headed MAN!"

Crosby, apparently either under the delusion he was a krogan or out of some perverse testosterone-fueled masculine pride, had kept his acid-soaked chestplate on and continued to tag along with Lieutenant Alenko's squad instead of returning to the entrance with Pakti. WHY the LT had let him do that Ashley could not begin to fathom, but apparently the first inkling they'd had of what was happening had been when Crosby fainted.

By the time they'd gotten him to her, he was unconscious, occasionally slipping back into consciousness just long enough to scream in fresh agony and pass right back out. The acid had eaten away both of his nipples and some of the pectoral muscles beneath, she'd caught a brief glimpse of his exposed clavicle before slapping a medigel-soaked dressing on his neck (she'd used all of the two squeeze tubes of gel she kept in her kit on dressings for this twat), and she was pretty sure a stray splash had severed a tendon in his left elbow as well. This was far beyond her skill or kit to heal; he needed to be brought onboard the _Normandy_ as soon as possible in order to be stabilized, but the full healing process would have to wait for a hospital ship or groundside hospital to begin.

There could be no question of moving him in this state; if she'd seen how bad it was she'd never have let the LT move him the three quarters of a klick to this building. She did not dare leave his side until the _Normandy_ landed and he could be moved to Dr. Chakwas's sickbay; she'd made Commander Shepard call the ship down the moment she'd gotten her first look at the injured dumbass. Since she quite obviously could not pick up a rifle and watch her own back while she worked, the Commander had had to leave Private Breazale to guard her, Crosby the dumbass, and Pakti (who couldn't do anything with a compromised hardsuit). That had left Commander Shepard nine effectives to sweep the last barracks, count bodies, and try to find a functional generator and computer system where he might've had eleven.

All thanks to one man's stupid pride.

She could hear the whine of the _Normandy_ 's engines, slowly but steadily growing louder. It couldn't have been more than five minutes since the Commander had called, but Joker still could've brought it down quicker. Maybe the Commander hadn't fully gotten the seriousness of the situation across. Maybe Joker was lingering to maximize his chances of shooting something with the GARDIAN lasers; if so, he was risking Crosby's life to zero purpose. Nothing was going to get past Commander Shepard.

Whatever Joker's reasons, once Crosby was Dr. Chakwas's problem, Ashley was going to slap him.

Shadows were hard to see in the eternal twilight of Chasca; she felt, rather than saw, Breazale loom over her.

"How is he?"

"Pulse is weak and thready. Corrosive damage to numerous muscles, at least two tendons, and at least one bone. Casualty is in mild, possibly severe, shock." She didn't bother looking up.

"Um, English please, Gunny?"

"His life is in danger and you should shut the fuck up and do your job so I can do mine."

"What job? I'm stuck here guarding you, Crosby, and Pakti from nothing. There's nine of them in there, including Commander Shepard and a freaking krogan. Nothing's getting out here."

On that point, Ashley wholeheartedly agreed with him. She still had trouble believing it herself, that she had been assigned to Commander Shepard's squad, working not only with humanity's greatest hero, but with an eclectic collection of aliens to boot. A month ago she had been stuck on permanent garrison duty on a peaceful core world, without even the promise of a pirate raid to distinguish herself.

Since then, there'd been robots, robot zombies, giant cuttlefish-shaped starships, and now acidic plant monsters. Her life had suddenly become so bizarre that she half expected to be brained by a sperm whale and a pot of petunias falling from the sky at any moment.

But she had a casualty in critical condition she was working on, and Breazale was distracting her, so she didn't tell him any of that. She was about to turn and metaphorically bite his head off when she heard the sound.

 _No. No, that's not possible_.

It wasn't the shrieking whistle of a plummeting sperm whale; it was something even more impossible.

Breazale had heard it too. He spun on the spot, trying to bring his weapon up, simultaneously sidestepping to the left…

… which allowed him to dodge the jet of acid vomit from the creeper standing not three feet behind him, the creeper that had no right to be there, that had incredibly stayed silent until its pre-puke gurgle had given it away, the lone creeper that had somehow gotten past Commander Shepard.

Breazale's sidestep to the left had saved him from taking every last bit of acid to his face and upper torso, but he hadn't gotten away completely unscathed. About half of the jet of lime green puke soaked his right forearm and his Avenger assault rifle, instantly wrecking the gun. The other half landed in the dirt mere inches away from the unconscious Crosby, spraying droplets all over his body glove and bare skin.

Cursing, the Marine private dropped the ruined weapon, then began to back away from the creeper, his left hand scrabbling at the release on his smoking right gauntlet. He had no sidearm.

 _No, shit, no, this isn't fair_ …

An hour and a half earlier, another creeper had elected to puke on a second target rather than follow up on Wrex, whom it had just temporarily incapacitated.

This one lunged at the retreating Breazale before he could take three steps. Its long talons somehow found the gap between the plating on the upper right arm of his hardsuit and his torso, and sheared off his right arm at the shoulder in one swipe. Breazale screamed, and fell to the ground.

 _No_.

Only now did the creeper turn towards Ashley. Her own Avenger was propped against the side of the building five feet away, on the other side of the creeper, (as was that of Pakti, standing frozen ten feet behind her in disbelief). Even if she could get to it before the thing took her head off, she'd have to abandon Crosby and Breazale.

It was too close to use any of the several grenades she still had on her belt. Even in heavy plate she didn't want to face those talons in hand to hand combat.

The creeper had moved away from her to cripple Breazale, out of vomit range. It took a few steps back toward her, placing it evenly between her and the screaming, bleeding private…

… and vanished in a blast of light, heat, and smoking soil, as it moved far enough away from the humans for Joker to take a shot with the descending _Normandy_ 's GARDIAN antifighter lasers.

Ashley didn't question it, didn't stop to thank God. She threw herself across Crosby to shield his raw wounds from the cascade of dirt and corrosive creeper blood, then scrambled to tend her newest casualty.

 **A/N: Well, y'all had the opportunity to request shorter chapters back in August, and you didn't take it, so expect more whoppers like this in the future. I have license to pack in ridiculous amounts of detail, and I'm going to take advantage of it.**

 **Ashley does seem to have developed quite the crush on Commander Shepard, doesn't she? Make note of how she keeps seeing him as the great hero of the vids.**

 **In case any of you don't remember and aren't in the middle of an ME1 playthrough, Chasca IS a sidemission in the game, with a missing team of pioneer colonists, apparently all turned into husks by Cerberus for the shits and giggles. Shepard and team show up, run said husks over with the Mako for amazing ragdolls, then the game informs you that Cerberus did it. Mission over, back to Normandy.**

 **Obviously I've kept some of that, but not all. For starters, it made absolutely no sense for Cerberus to have gotten access to dragon's teeth from the scientists at ExoGeni on Feros in the game (did the geth give them to the scientists and allow the scientists to ship them offworld before going back to killing them?), so I changed the husks to Thorian creepers, a much more plausible export from Feros. The Normandy's Marine detachment is now down two men, and it remains to be seen whether Cerberus meant for all this crap to happen at all.**

 **Next up: Garrus 2.**

 **As always, read, review, follow and favorite, please. On that note, a shoutout to Kenislav: I thought my email inbox had glitched at first when I saw all those review notifications. And as for the comparatively low stats, I believe I've hit on part of the reason. The first six chapters of the story were published when I was a lot more inexperienced at writing fiction, and are consequently filled with massive, awkward blocks of text that many people take one look at and stop reading. Therefore, rereleasing edited versions of those is now on the to-do list as well.**


	13. Garrus II

_**1320 Hours AST, April 24, 2183**_

 _ **Sickbay, Deck Two, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **En Route to System Edge, Matano System, Maroon Sea Cluster**_

"What's the word, Doctor?"

It had taken more than six hours of work for Dr. Chakwas to fully stabilize the three casualties that the _Normandy_ 's ground detachment had taken on Chasca; two from their initial encounter with the "creeper" plant monsters, and a third from a single creeper, that as best as Garrus, Commander Shepard, and Lieutenant Alenko had been able to figure, had remained dormant in a corner until the detachment moved past, then slipped out of the building behind them. While she'd worked, the rest of the crew hadn't been allowed in to disturb her, not even the Commander, and had instead busied themselves tidying up on Chasca and setting the ship on a course out of the system and back to the cluster's mass relay.

Only now had the doctor finished and called the Commander down for her recommendation. Garrus, Alenko, and XO Pressly had tagged along.

Dr. Chakwas looked tired, to Garrus' eyes, though not as much as certain other people in the room. "I'll get the good news out of the way first, Commander. Private Pakti received only light burns from the acid of the creatures you dealt with, and Gunnery Sergeant Williams applied first aid procedure for corrosive substances correctly. I'll want him on light duty for the next three to four days, with a checkup with me, but after that he should be fine."

"Williams said as much on the ground when she first saw him." Commander Shepard looked tired as well, though in his case that hadn't changed at all over the past few weeks. He also looked tense. "What of the other two?"

"They were both in critical condition when they reached me, Commander. I've managed to stabilize them, and the immediate danger is past for both, but they will need to be transferred to a fleet hospital as soon as possible."

The sickbay was crowded. Aside from Chakwas and Shepard, standing in the middle of the room, and Alenko, Pressly, and Garrus himself standing quietly behind Shepard, all three casualties were sleeping on the sickbeds in the bay. Gunnery Sergeant Williams was sleeping too, slumped in the doctor's chair with her head drooping down onto her chest, dressed in an odd combination of spare surgical scrubs over her fatigues. As the only person aboard other than Chakwas with medical training, she'd been pressed into service as the doctor's assistant while the rest of the _Normandy_ 's Marines had returned to their compartment on the hangar deck. This she had done, though as Garrus understood it, not before she'd marched up to the cockpit and slapped the bewildered pilot across the face.

"Crosby's injuries were more widespread, but will be easier to permanently fix. He will require at least two major surgeries as well as reconstructive tissue therapy to return to normal; I expect anywhere from four to seven months recovery time. Breazale's injury was much simpler in theory, but unfortunately the severed end of his arm landed in a splash of acid, damaging it enough that it was beyond any hope of reattaching. With regard to prosthetics-,"

Shepard cut her off. "How urgent is getting them both to a full hospital?"

Dr. Chakwas pressed her lips together in a thin line. "As I've noted, Commander, the immediate danger is past. Without the surgeries I've mentioned, however, there is a significant danger of complications arising within the next few weeks that could threaten their lives all over again. In addition, the window for Breazale successfully getting a prosthetic arm interfaced with his nervous system will narrow with every passing day, and with it any chance of him being able to continue his career in the Marine Corps."

"I need a more precise estimate than 'sometime within the next few weeks', Doctor Chakwas."

"I'm afraid I cannot give you one, Commander. I like to think I keep a clean sickbay, but this simply cannot be a 100% sterile environment, and thus the risk of infection is present. I'm also still attempting to fully analyze the acid of the creatures you encountered, to make certain there were not any hidden toxins. In the worst case scenario, their conditions could begin to take a turn towards the worse sometime in the next few days."

An indecipherable look spread over Commander Shepard's gaunt face as he pondered that for a few moments. He gave a single, terse nod. "I understand. Thank you for your recommendations, Doctor." He turned and began to move back out of the sickbay, motioning Garrus, Alenko, and Pressly to follow him.

At the door into the corridor outside, Garrus paused and looked back over his shoulder. Dr. Chakwas had moved to the side of Private Crosby's bed, checking one of the readouts on its side. All three casualties and Gunnery Sergeant Williams were still fast asleep. At the far end of the compartment, the hatch leading into the storage compartment stayed firmly closed, without any sign that there was an occupant in the room beyond.

 _Let's hope it stays that way_. Commander Shepard hadn't bothered to inform Garrus ahead of time before stripping both guards off the asari. While the human officer was certainly under no obligation to tell him anything, Garrus was beginning to wonder why Shepard had bothered to solicit his opinion on anything at all. The Commander certainly hadn't acted on anything he'd said. _I can't fathom why he seems so eager to trust her. Lieutenant Alenko thought she was harmless too, but his recommendation was to drop her off at the nearest spaceport. Instead she seems to have turned into a permanent resident aboard_.

Garrus sighed, twitched his mandibles, and headed out into the corridor.

He found the three human men standing there, clustered together and already in the middle of an urgent conversation. Thankfully, despite being in the middle of a central corridor on the crew deck in the middle of the day shift, no other crew members were in sight.

"The nearest location with friendly Alliance forces would be New Siena, just inside the borders of Alliance space proper," Lieutenant Pressly was saying. "First and Fourth Fleets are currently staging their long range frigate patrols out of there. If you want hospital ships, we're probably going to have to go all the way back to the anchorage at Elysium. Both of those are going the opposite direction in the relay network from Feros."

"How long will it take us to get there?" Garrus asked, joining the group. The humans looked up and nodded, acknowledging his presence.

"Approximately forty hours flight time from the mass relay in the Hercules system to Theseus. Add in the day's trip back to the relay in this cluster, though that applies wherever we go, and we're looking at almost three days trip there."

"Meaning that our casualties are running a major risk from the moment we arrive in system and getting worse every minute thereafter." The Commander did not look happy.

"Unfortunately, yes, sir. We don't have any other choice but to risk it, in my opinion."

Lieutenant Alenko echoed that. "Commander, Feros has a population of over three hundred people between the spaceport and the ExoGeni research base it supplies. They'll have already been out of contact for over a week by the time we get there if we leave right now. We _can't_ prioritize two injured Marines over that."

Shepard pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "You're aware that we would be potentially heading into combat down thirty percent of our Marine detachment, Alenko? Seeing as Pakti's hardsuit was destroyed?"

"Garrus, Tali, and Wrex put us right back at establishment level, sir. We'll be fine." Alenko's tone was that of someone politely stating the obvious; Garrus knew as well as the human Marine did that this was one of the main reasons he and the other nonhumans had been allowed aboard in the first place. _The Commander's searching for excuses. Why?_

He decided to dip his own talon into the argument. "Shepard, your doctor only said that there 'might' be complications if the injured Marines aren't immediately taken to a larger facility. Nothing is guaranteed to go wrong here. But even if it was, three hundred lives are obviously a greater good than two."

Commander Shepard's eyes narrowed. "Garrus, for future reference, don't ever cite 'the greater good' when trying to convince me of something." His posture sagged slightly. "Nevertheless, I concede the points all three of you just made. Pressly, set course for the Attican Beta and Feros. Garrus, Kaidan, you can return to your duties."

The two humans saluted and moved off in opposite directions: Pressly toward the stairs to the CIC, Alenko toward the lift that would take him back down to the hangar bay and his remaining effective Marines.

Garrus stayed where he was.

The Commander slumped against the corridor bulkhead and buried his head in his hands momentarily after dismissing the rest of them. He frowned when he looked up to see Garrus still standing there. "I said you could go, Garrus."

"Yes, well, I actually completed repairs to the Mako the day we arrived in this cluster. The only duty I have now is the daily calibration of its main cannon, at least until you get it shot up again." _And you'll have to forgive me for looking for an excuse to put that off._ "I was actually rather hoping to talk with you in private."

Commander Shepard straightened. "Of course. In that case, we should probably speak in my quarters rather than just standing around in the corridor. I'm amazed we haven't been intruded on already." He moved off down the corridor in the direction of his cabin, with Garrus once again following.

The _Normandy_ was a slim ship, so it wasn't far at all to the Commander's quarters—perhaps thirty feet at the most. But the time it took to cover that space was enough for Garrus to notice a slight sway in Shepard's stride, and also how he surreptitiously brushed his hand against the wall to steady himself. _Forget exhausted, he looks half concussed. Maybe he is. Maybe one of those creepers backhanded him on the helmet or something in the last building on Chasca. Didn't seem like it at the time, he was fighting just fine, but…_

 _He shouldn't be working like this. Right after we left the Citadel, I pulled Tali off duty for the same reason. I can't exactly do that here, though. Maybe just make a suggestion? "Commander, don't you think a nap would be great?"_

 _Even in my head that sounds utterly inane._

They reached the entrance of the Commander's quarters. Shepard palmed the door open, entered, and then stood in the middle of the room. Garrus followed him in.

"All right, Garrus, what did you want to talk about?"

It occurred to Garrus that he'd forgotten the original reason he'd wanted to speak to Shepard, the reason he'd hung back in the first place. He flailed about mentally for a moment before it occurred to him. "Have you managed to learn anything from Dr. T'Soni? I recall you saying you intended to interview her some more."

"I have. Twice more, as a matter of fact. It hasn't produced anything meaningful in the way of figuring out what Saren's plans might be."

Something of Garrus' total lack of surprise must have shown on his face, for a trace of irritation was clearly evident as Shepard continued. "Dr. T'Soni genuinely wants to help us, Garrus. If there's one thing I _have_ learned from talking to her, it's that. The Prothean extinction is one of her particular specialties, and based on what little I've been able to tell her of my visions, she suspects the info in the beacon may have had something to do with that. All of her actual research was blown up on Therum or is still locked up in her office and apartment on Thessia, but she's voluntarily writing down everything she knows on the subject off the top of her head. She's also volunteered to write down everything that happened to her on Therum from the moment the geth showed up; maybe there's some sort of clue in the exact words of the battlemaster that led them."

"Commander, with all due respect, you can't take anything she writes down on that topic at face value."

"Why not? You yourself admitted after her initial interrogation that you had nothing but suspicions. No proof that she has done anything wrong whatsoever or knows anything about what her mother and Saren are up to. Why _shouldn't_ I trust her, or at least give her the chance to earn my trust?" Before Garrus could answer, Commander Shepard plowed on. "Put it this way, Garrus. What would it take for you to completely, 100% erase all of your own doubts about Dr. T'Soni?"

"Commander, given the stakes here and her connections on the other side of this, it would probably take her actively drawing a gun on her mother to defend you or I. Which, admittedly, is an impossible standard. Not least because it would require you to actually be insane enough to arm her in the first place."

A pregnant pause.

"Commander, you can't seriously have-,"

"No, Garrus, I haven't," Shepard said wearily. "I may end up with no choice, though. I've deployed the _Normandy_ 's Marine detachment in one three hour mission since this cruise began, and already thirty percent of them are casualties. Two of them are out of commission for months at the absolute minimum. Kaidan's right that you, Wrex, and Tali still leave us at ten fighters plus myself, but Feros could very easily change that. Even assuming it doesn't, Alliance Personnel Command isn't particularly energetic about sending replacements to random frigates, especially when the frigate in question is operating outside of the normal chain of command. By her own admission, Dr. T'Soni's a capable shot with a pistol, an above average biotic even by asari standards, and has previous combat experience on her solo archaeological digs."

"Commander Shepard, that's all the more reason to NOT arm her and put her at your back, especially in a potential combat situation." Garrus was so stunned by this turn of events he forgot to worry about the Commander falling asleep in the middle of a firefight or ordering Joker to fly the ship into a star. _I only knew the barest essentials about this man when I joined up: the best warrior the humans had, someone the Council thought was smart and savvy enough to track down and defeat Saren Arterius._

Garrus had seen enough in the past week and a half to confirm Shepard's reputation as a fighter and squad leader, but the rest… _He seems determined to place a metaphorical giant "Stab Here" sign on his back. How can you help someone like that?_

 _Why can't anything ever be easy?_

"Enough, Vakarian," Commander Shepard said, his tone and his use of Garrus' last name making it clear that he was reaching the end of his patience with this line of discussion. "I don't trust Dr. T'Soni fully, not yet, despite what you seem to think. But unlike you, and seemingly unlike everyone else aboard, I am willing to give her a chance to earn my trust and prove herself. Just like I gave you, and Wrex, and Tali. We're done with this topic. Is there anything else you wish to discuss with me?" He crossed the room to his desk, removed a disposable cup from a drawer, then filled it with a dark brown liquid from a pitcher set as far away as possible from his personal computer. His hands were slightly, but obviously, shaking as he did so.

It was the sight of that that finally gave Garrus the courage to just come out and say it. "Commander, I'm not entirely sure how much sleep an adult human needs, but whatever the amount is, I don't think you're getting it." _Oh, I actually found an even more tactless way to bring it up than talking about naptime!_

For an instant, he thought Shepard might throw him out of the compartment headfirst. Then the moment passed, and the Commander laughed hollowly. "That obvious, is it?"

"…yes."

Shepard took a drink from his cup, then set it on his desk and sank into his chair. "How much do you know about the visions I got from the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime?"

"Not much," Garrus said cautiously. "You and Saren were the only ones to see them. The beacon disintegrated after it communicated with you, or whatever the correct term is. Are you saying these visions are keeping you up at night?" _Compared to what Tali was doing, this is both good and bad. Good because at least the ship isn't being run by someone deliberately pushing himself over the edge. Bad, because there might not be any easy fix for this._

"'Visions' is too strong a term for it," Shepard said, taking another drink from his cup. "The term implies some sort of sense or order. These are just images and impressions, blurring together in a giant mess. I see pictures of war and death, smell burning bodies, hear screams. One flashes through my mind and is replaced instantly by another. There's no context to any of it and none of it lingers long enough for me to even try to define it. After the beacon jammed this crap into my brain, I spent thirteen hours in the medbay watching it on repeat."

The Commander slumped lower in his chair. "After I woke up from that, they faded. I was able to get some rest in the Human Embassy on the Presidium, and I went through the whole mess on the Citadel, trying to expose Saren, with a clear head."

"But about halfway through the FTL flight to Therum, they came back, and they're getting worse. It's gotten to the point in the last few days where I'm lucky if I can sleep for more than two hours total in a night. Last night, before we entered the Chasca system, I wasn't lucky. I think I've maybe gotten an hour and a half of sleep in the last sixty hours. And it's not just when I sleep, not within the last few days, I'm beginning to see the images whenever I close my eyes."

"So no, Garrus, to answer your question, I am not getting anywhere near the recommended amount of sleep each night."

Garrus was dimly aware that his mandibles were hanging slack in disbelief; he hurriedly pulled them back into their normal positions. _This… this is way worse than I thought. Forget exhausted, he ought to be unconscious on the floor._ "Shepard, you need to speak to the doctor."

The Commander snorted in derision and took another drink of the brown liquid in his cup. Garrus' eyes followed it as Shepard set it back on his desk. "Practically the first thing Chakwas told me when I woke up after Eden Prime was that she had no clue what the beacon might've done to me, and she had no evidence of anything physically wrong with me other than 'funny brain waves'. No, there's nothing she can do, and she's already got two serious casualties on her hands in case you'd forgotten. Sweet tea," he added, seeing Garrus staring at his drink. "The sugar and caffeine help. That and combat stims are keeping me running for now."

"Stims?" This just kept getting better. "Commander, in the long run, that's only going to-"

"Make it worse, I know. Believe me, I know. I've used them often enough in the past to know the debt you run up when you overdo the things. I have no choice, Garrus. In case you'd forgotten, I was very publicly entrusted with this mission in front of half the galaxy on live TV. I can't go back to the Council after a week and a half and tell them to pull me off it because I'm having nightmares. The sane thing for me to do right now would be to turn myself in to a Naval psych ward to see if they could figure out how the hell to permanently suppress these visions, but the Alliance and humanity need their symbol." The human Commander's face twisted in an expression Garrus wasn't familiar with, though he could guess its meaning- disgust. "So I'm just going to make do the best I can."

Garrus didn't particularly care about symbolism, but he grasped the difficulty of Shepard's situation well enough. _Still, he can't possibly think getting himself killed would be a good PR move for his species either_. He was about to say something to that effect when Shepard spoke up again.

"If there's nothing else you need to speak to me about, Garrus, I'd appreciate it if you left. I've issued my orders for Feros, and Pressly has the deck. I've got a few hours to myself, and I'd like to spend them trying to get some sleep. Probably won't work, but I'm going to try anyways."

Garrus flicked his mandibles and nodded in acknowledgement, then pivoted and left the Commander's quarters. If Shepard wanted to sleep, more power to him; and he had nothing more to say at the moment.

As he headed for the elevator that would take him back down to the hangar and the awaiting Mako with its eternally obstinate main gun, however, he did have something to think.

 _I volunteered for this_.

 _ **1440 Hours AST, April 27, 2183**_

 _ **Bridge Access Corridor, Deck One, SSV Normandy SR1**_

 _ **Lower Atmosphere, Feros, Theseus System, Attican Beta Cluster**_

 __The corridor was too crowded.

Garrus knew that he probably should have been focusing on something weightier, like the possible fate of the colonists on Feros, or what Saren Arterius might be doing at that very moment to bring about the doom of all galactic civilization, or his mother's progressing Korpalis Syndrome, or the fact that the dextro food stocks in the galley were already getting alarmingly low (Tali would _definitely_ be paying for the next grocery trip).

 _Instead, all I can think of is that the krogan probably just passed gas right in front of my face, and I can't even turn away because basically every person on this ship still capable of bearing arms is packed in this corridor like a school of nraxa fish._

They had arrived in the Theseus system, home of the second unresponsive colony that they were checking out, at exactly 0830 that morning by the ship's chronometers, and had spent the interim time cautiously making their way towards the planet. They had confirmed a lack of any hostile presence in orbit within the first hour or so after exiting FTL, but Commander Shepard and Lieutenant Pressly had spent several more hours attempting to get comprehensive scans of the planet's surface… to little result.

The reason was straightforward.

Like Therum, Feros had a massive amount of particulates and contaminants floating around in its atmosphere that played havoc with sensors and comm gear. Unlike on Therum, they weren't natural.

For a race that had shaped the galaxy in so many profound ways, surprisingly little was known about the Prothean Empire, but it was beyond any doubt that Feros had once been one of their core worlds. The remains of what had once been a titanic ecumenopolis, a planet-spanning city, covered two thirds of the land mass of the planet, even in ruin a greater size than any city in the modern galaxy.

 _Ruin, of course, being the operative word_. The Protheans had vanished fifty thousand years ago, and that time had taken its toll on their city. Around half of the massive skyscrapers that had formed their city had collapsed in on themselves at various points over the millennia, and those that were left were crumbling and unstable. Debris at ground level averaged almost thirty meters thick, and even among the clouds the air could best be described most of the time as "chewable". _I understood why the humans would want to settle Chasca, even if it turned out… poorly. But this place? This is a tomb_.

Settle on Feros the humans had, however. To their credit, they'd at least picked the most stable grouping of skyscrapers left on the planet: the main colony of Zhu's Hope, population three hundred or so, served as a supply port for the ExoGeni research base and headquarters located in a separate skyscraper approximately three miles to the north-northwest, connected by a similarly miraculously intact highway suspended in the air.

But regardless of how intact the buildings the human colonists had settled in were, the fact remained that the rest of the buildings on the planet were _not_ , and so Shepard and Pressley had been unable to learn anything meaningful about the condition of the colonists.

Or, almost anything meaningful: it had been extremely scratchy, squeaky and distorted, but there had been an identifiable human voice on the other end of the comm, and the equally scratchy, squeaky and distorted pulse of a distress beacon. Shepard and Pressley were of the opinion that this meant that there were colonists alive at Zhu's Hope, as there had not been on Chasca, and that they were under attack from some assailant. Garrus was inclined to agree. _Although the constant "jumping headfirst into ominous deadly situations" is starting to get on my nerves. It's beginning to feel like some sick god is doing this deliberately to crank up dramatic tension_.

Regardless of any potential manipulation by trolling deities, the near certainty of the colony having some sort of hostile presence was responsible for Garrus' current uncomfortable situation. The unique nature of Feros' terrain meant that troops couldn't be deployed via the hangar. Instead, the _Normandy_ would have to land in Zhu's Hope's docking bay just as if it were a freighter delivering supplies and disembark its troops via the airlock next to the bridge. The shore party would then have to walk up to Zhu's Hope itself, located several stories higher in the skyscraper, and remove whatever hostiles were there.

It would almost certainly be the mysterious "creepers" that had shown up on Chasca, Garrus knew; if it had been geth there would have been some sign of a transport in the vicinity, one that the _Normandy_ 's sensors would have been able to pick up even through the atmospheric contaminants if it was high enough to land troops to threaten the human settlements. _Dear spirits, the acid pukers were disgusting but they'll still be preferable to having to stand behind the krogan any longer_. He gagged slightly.

"Okay, everyone, we'll be docking in less than three minutes," the Commander's voice said from behind him. As if on cue, Garrus felt the pulse of the engines subtly alter beneath his feet as the Normandy began its final approach to the Prothean skyscraper. _Tali's been keeping them in fine shape_. The quarian girl was once again being left in the engineering compartment for this mission, despite her protests; though Shepard acknowledged how well she'd done on Therum, he was still reluctant to actively risk her in situations where her expertise on the geth wasn't needed.

In what seemed like no time at all, the _Normandy_ slowed, then stopped. A moment more, and a green light flicked on above the airlock door. The krogan opened it and pushed his way out. Garrus followed, into the airlock itself, through the exterior of the hull, and into the standard white docking umbilical of a kind found the galaxy over.

They emerged into a cavernous, bleak gray docking bay that on first glance Garrus estimated to be around 119 tracks from the vaulting ceiling to the floor some distance below and 94 tracks horizontally, or approximately 140 feet by 110 feet in human measurement. A long rectangular walkway, made of the same drab duracrete-like substance as the rest of the bay, ran along the perimeter of the echoing space. In front of them was a blank gray wall, though Garrus could see a door that likely led to stairs; behind them was a sea of clouds.

Aside from him, the krogan, and the rest of the shore party emerging from the docking umbilical, the bay was entirely deserted.

No creepers or other hostiles. No civilian welcoming party. Nothing.

"And here you'd gotten me all excited, Shepard," the krogan rumbled.

"Give it time, Wrex," Commander Shepard said, bringing up the rear of the shore party as they fanned out onto the walkway. He still looked just as exhausted as he had three days before, to Garrus's eyes, but his voice was steady. _Hopefully that's a good sign_.

"That stairwell likely leads to the actual colony of Zhu's Hope," the commander continued, raising his voice to address the entire shore party. "We're going to take it, move into the colony, and save any colonists we find. You all know the drill on how to deal with creepers by now. Keep your intervals, don't let them get close, don't let their blood or vomit get onto you. It'll be harder in these close quarters, but if you're paying attention-,"

A shout interrupted him, echoing around the cavernous docking bay. A single human had appeared in the doorway of the stairwell, racing towards them. _Oh, it looks like we're going to get a welcoming party after all. Maybe they just needed a bit of extra time to bake a cake for us._

Commander Shepard, his mouth twisted downward in a human frown, pushed his way through the shore party and moved to greet the colonist, the rest of them trailing along in his wake.

The human man slowed to a halt as he reached them, panting as humans that weren't in the best of physical shape did after a serious exertion. He had light brown skin, black hair, a hooked nose, and an expression of disbelief on his face.

"We had no idea the Alliance was coming to help us until we saw your ship just now," the man gasped. "We thought we'd been abandoned. Fai Dan sent me to bring you to him. He wants to speak with you immediately."

Commander Shepard hefted his Mattock battle rifle and began to walk towards the stairwell at a measured pace. "You're saying you're under attack?" _We already figured that out, but it's nice to have confirmation._ "From what?" _We basically figured that out as well, but confirmation will be nice._ "Who's Fai Dan? And would you mind telling me who you are?"

The man, having apparently just sprinted all the way down from Zhu's Hope, did not look too pleased at having to immediately turn and go back without a chance to catch his breath, but began to follow nonetheless. "I-I'm David. David al-Talaqani. Fai Dan is- he's our leader. Like I said, he wants to speak with you, if you're here to help us."

"That's the general idea." Commander Shepard still didn't seem particularly concerned. Perhaps he was simply trying to calm al-Talaqani, who looked very stressed out in addition to being out of breath. "I understand it might be difficult for you, but I need to know the basics of what's going on here."

"Fai Dan can-,"

"No, not from Fai Dan, I need to know right now." An edge of unmistakable authority crept into the Commander's voice.

David al-Talaqani swallowed, his face shiny with sweat. "It started eight days ago. These… things… came out of nowhere and started attacking us. We had never seen anything like them, we weren't ready, we… hardly any of us had ever fired a gun before."

 _Eight days. Where were we then? We had… yes, we had just recovered Dr. T'Soni from Therum. Could that be significant? How? Could these plant monsters be connected to Saren somehow? What about that symbol on the seed crates?_

There was a pattern here, Garrus knew. Something was going on, something that tied all the crazy events of the last few weeks together, and once they figured out what they'd have Saren within their grasp. They didn't have nearly enough information to do that, but at this rate that would change soon enough.

As Garrus paced along amidst the rest of the shore party, Commander Shepard spoke again, his voice now carrying a more reassuring tone. The group had almost reached the stairwell that would take them up to Zhu's Hope. "I know it's hard, David, but the worst is over for you. How many of you are there?"

"There were a hundred of us. Now, I don't know, maybe there's thirty. It's been horrible. My brother, Levi, he was, one of those robot things blew his head off two days ago, and my friend Gregory…"

David al-Talaqani continued on, the wall surrounding the grief at his losses over the past few days breaking down at Commander Shepard's question, but it was reduced to a vague buzzing noise in Garrus's ears.

Robot things.

Geth.

The entire shore party, Shepard included, stopped dead. Garrus heard a sharp hiss from Williams, a rumbling chuckle from the krogan, a muttered curse from one of the other human Marines.

 _This is our link to Saren, but… why? On Therum, it made sense at least that they'd want T'Soni. Here, there's nothing but ruined skyscrapers and a handful of unimportant colonists._

 _More pressing, how? There was no hint of geth in orbit, nothing in atmosphere, not a hint of their power signatures, this doesn't make any sense!_

There was something else too, something subtler that escaped him at the moment, an uneasy sensation Garrus had felt from time to time at C-SEC, a whispering voice that said there was yet another reason why geth being the force attacking Feros made no sense, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was at the moment.

He became aware that his mandibles had flared themselves in total shock. Shepard's own face was blank, but when he spoke, it was decisive.

"Grenado, double time it back onto the _Normandy_ , tell Pressley to message Alliance Fleet Command,and get Tali. Give her five minutes max to grab her gear and anything else she might need to deal with geth, then come after us." The third female Marine of the Normandy's detachment nodded and ran back towards the docking umbilical. "The rest of you, we're continuing on immediately. Let's pick up the pace."

By Garrus's count, there were six flights of decaying duracrete stairs they had to climb to reach Zhu's Hope, each flight before the last one ending in a landing with a doorway sealed off by rubble. Here in the stairwell, sheltered from the winds and elements, the air was comparatively still, and he could taste the dust of fifty millennia in the air, along with the mold that was growing on the underside of the staircases. _Dust, damp, and decay. What do the humans want here? What do the geth?_

Then they reached the top, and emerged into Zhu's Hope itself.

The settlement consisted of a large open courtyard at the top of the skyscraper, with a few more floors rising around it to shield it from the winds. There was enough prefabricated housing crammed into the space to fit at least a hundred people, as well as, bizarrely, a small space freighter _. What in the name of all the spirits is that doing here and not in the docking bay?_ It was the cap on the chaotic feel of the place.

Zhu's Hope was an utter mess. Even if al-Talaqani hadn't already told them the colonists were under attack from the geth, Garrus would've been able to figure it out from the bullet holes stitching most of the buildings in the courtyard, and the scorch marks from a flamethrower that covered the corner of one of those buildings, and the impact craters of several rockets scattered all over the place. _The destroyed geth platforms they've stacked against that wall over there are a bit of a giveaway too_.

Yet there was still life here too, if a terrified, hunted sort. Almost as soon as they entered the courtyard, several humans and a salarian appeared, hunched behind makeshift barricades and pointing civilian grade pistols at the shore party, though they lowered their weapons quickly enough when they saw that their new visitors were organic. Not one of them even had so much as a rifle. The nagging sense from earlier returned, stronger.

"David! You're back!" One of the humans, a dark haired woman, said in a tone of clear relief, before turning to look at the shore party. "Are these really-?"

"Yes, May, they're from the Alliance. We're saved!" That brought a chorus of delight from the colonists, as Commander Shepard stepped forward.

"I'm Commander Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy. My ship and I were sent to investigate your colony after we lost communications. Mr. al-Talaqani has told me your leader is a man named Fai Dan, do you know where I can find him?"

"He's over on the eastern edge of the courtyard." The woman named May waved her pistol in the general direction indicated, over the unhelmeted heads of two of her fellow colonists. Garrus winced at the horrible display of weapon safety; the nagging sense grew stronger. "All the geth have come from that way. We fought off the last attack a couple of hours ago, and they could show up again at any moment. Fai Dan and our heads of security are checking to make sure the barricades are still intact."

The Commander thanked her, and then set off, leading the group through the cramped winding confines of the prefab buildings and the freighter, which according to the lettering on its hull was named the _Borealis_. It was perhaps only a few dozen meters to the location May had indicated in a straight line, but the path they were forced to take weaving in and out easily tripled that distance.

As they walked, Garrus saw more colonists, some clearly injured from bullet wounds or shrapnel, some not obviously injured but cradling their heads (possible concussions?), and others giving medical attention to the first three groups or fixing damage to the buildings.

All of them were in civilian clothing. None of them, again, had any armament heavier than a pistol. The nagging sensation grew stronger still, though Garrus still couldn't quite put his finger on it.

The _Normandy_ 's shore party squeezed through the buildings and made it to the eastern entrance of the courtyard. Just as with the presence of the geth, Garrus would have been able to figure out that this area had seen the heaviest fighting even if May hadn't said so; it was completely trashed. Right now, though, there were only three people there, all humans, one man and two women.

All three of them looked exhausted. The man, who Garrus guessed was Fai Dan, was shorter than his female compatriots (unusual among humans) with black hair that was graying at the temples and oddly slanted eyes. As for the two women, one had relatively long golden hair and one had close cut black hair, one had pale skin and one had tawny, but both wore hardsuits (albeit light ones, more suited for riot police than the front lines) and carried standard Alliance Avenger assault rifles.

It was the sight of those, the first gear remotely suitable for real combat that he'd seen so far in the colony of Zhu's Hope, that finally made the sensation Garrus had been feeling ever since he'd learned of the presence of the geth solidify.

Two rifles. Two rifles and a bunch of pistols, up against… the geth couldn't fit one of the spider tanks they were using on Therum through the halls of this skyscraper, but they could probably fit one of the larger biped platforms, the ones Tali had called Destroyers and Juggernauts, and even the standard infantry troopers were well armed. The shore party had already seen evidence of stray shots from pulse rifles, plasma grenades, and light assault rockets as they'd walked through the rest of Zhu's Hope, to say nothing of the devastation right here.

 _There was no geth ship in orbit, no sign of one in atmosphere, no sign of their power signatures in the building that the Normandy's sensors could detect, but even past that, when we realized that there were survivors down here, we thought it HAD to be creepers. Those things, they're hideous and disgusting, and they could definitely hurt civilians if they got the jump, but I could understand how there could be survivors. They're simply not that dangerous if you see them coming, even with light pistols._

 _The geth, though? They're a modern army. No, they're more than modern, they're robots with lightning fast reflexes, strength that rivals krogan in the smallest of them, and tech that none of the Citadel races have. A settlement of unarmed colonists should have been obliterated into a smoking crater within a few minutes of a direct geth assault._

 _Thirty survivors out of a settlement of a hundred, al-Talaqani said. I should be glad, but I can't be, because there shouldn't be ANY._

Fai Dan and the two women were deep in conversation at first, but they looked up as the shore party approached. Fai Dan's face split into a broad smile, as did the golden haired woman. The one with black hair's expression was distinctly unwelcoming.

"We could hardly believe it when we saw your ship coming in," Fai Dan said, moving to shake the Commander's hand. "You couldn't have come at a better time."

"They certainly could have," the black haired woman said in an acid tone. "About a week ago."

"Arcelia!" Fai Dan and the other woman said in unison. Arcelia lapsed back into silence, scowling at them.

Fai Dan turned back to Commander Shepard apologetically. "I'm sorry for that, officer. The last eight days have been hard on us all here. Allow me to introduce my companions; this is Greta Reynolds-," the golden haired woman moved forward and offered her own hand for Shepard to shake, "and this is Arcelia Martinez." The black haired woman did not move, the scowl still frozen on her face. "They're ExoGeni's security officers here at Zhu's Hope. If it weren't for them none of us would still be alive here."

That explained the equipment the two women were carrying, then. _Doesn't explain how two cops held off an army of robots_. Garrus knew from experience that CSec's weapons training was rather shaky at best; everything useful he knew of combat came from his time in Hierarchy special forces. He doubted ExoGeni was that much more lavish with their corporate security.

"Alliance Fleet Command didn't know anything more than that you failed a comm check," Shepard said. "My crew and I were sent to investigate what happened to you, as well as to Chasca, who also failed a check. I've already ordered a message to be sent to Alliance Command, reporting the presence of the geth here and requesting reinforcements."

"You're all they sent?" Arcelia Martinez looked even angrier now.

"For now, ma'am." Commander Shepard didn't seem to notice Martinez's anger. "Fai Dan, the man you sent to greet us said that the geth began attacking you eight days ago. Is that correct?"

"It is, officer."

"Do you have any clue why they might do that? Have they taken any prisoners? Has there been any objective that they've consistently attacked the hardest towards?"

"I'm just a civilian, officer, I don't know anything about that." The smile on Fai Dan's face had been suddenly replaced by a distinctly pained grimace.

The next ten or so minutes was highly reminiscent of some of the more frustrating interrogations Garrus had taken part in at CSec, although at least this time he was standing on the sidelines observing rather than actually having to deal with a recalcitrant subject. Again and again, Commander Shepard pressed Fai Dan for information about the lead up to the geth's attack, their objectives, how ill equipped and untrained colonists had repelled them. Again and again, Fai Dan deflected the questions or simply ignored them. Greta Reynolds and Arcelia Martinez were not any more forthcoming.

Only the arrival of Tali and Caroline Grenado broke that fruitless cycle.

"Where were you two?" Shepard said as the two walked up. "I expected you to have been here by now. Fai Dan, this is Private Caroline Grenado, she's one of my Marines, and this is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, a quarian that's been attached to my crew and an expert on the geth. While we wait for the fleet to get here, she'll help us devise-,"

"Sir, outgoing comms are being jammed." Grenado ignored the colonists and addressed Shepard directly.

"- countermeasures to begin pushing them back- what?"

"Just like on Therum, sir. Pressly couldn't get a coherent signal on any of the bands. Alliance still has no clue there's geth here, we're on our own."

"It's more than that, Shepard." Tali moved out from behind Grenado and brought up her omnitool. "When we reached the entrance to the courtyard I tried to call back to the ship and didn't get anything. I tried to call across the courtyard to you, to let you know we were coming, and didn't get any signal either. This is definitely geth based, I would recognize the patterns in the interference even if we hadn't already seen them on Therum, but it's much more powerful. A bigger jammer on a bigger ship."

"A… a bigger ship? Bigger than the one they deployed on Therum, you mean?" The Commander looked as if he'd swallowed something extremely foul tasting. Garrus couldn't blame him.

"Yes."

"We've seen it," Fai Dan volunteered, with Greta Reynolds nodding behind him. "Just a few hours ago. It flew down, towards the planet's surface, below the cloud layer."

That commenced a second round of questioning, this time with Tali interrogating the leader of the colonists about anything he could remember about the geth's ship. Fai Dan was much more forthcoming with the quarian girl than he'd been with Shepard. _Because she's not asking him why the geth are here, just how to start getting rid of them_.

"Commander, this sounds like at least a light cruiser," Tali said when she'd finished questioning Fai Dan. "At least twice the tonnage of _Normandy_. My guess is that it can probably fit-,"

"Tali, this time I don't want to know the exact numbers." Shepard looked resigned. "Let me see if I understand this correctly. We have a geth ship that's already landed troops onto these skyscrapers that are likely to outnumber us several hundred to one. It's still in atmosphere, and close enough that it will likely engage and destroy the _Normandy_ in minutes if we try to take off, it apparently having been only a miracle that we made it in to dock. It's also jamming all comms in the area down to handheld radios so we can't call in heavy units of our own to destroy it for us. Is that right?"

"Yes, sir," Tali and Private Grenado chorused.

"… Naturally. Alright then," Commander Shepard said, turning back to Fai Dan, Reynolds, and Martinez. "It would appear I spoke too soon regarding our reinforcements. Is there anything at all you can tell me about where the geth are based? Do they even have a base, or has the cruiser just been dropping them directly onto the tower?"

"Thank God, no they haven't." It was Reynolds that spoke this time. "It would've been nearly impossible for us to hold Zhu's Hope if they'd done that. I'm frankly astonished that they haven't. No, they hit the ExoGeni headquarters across the skyway first, and they've marched their troops in from there. They have a… beachhead of sorts in the garage that they've been attacking upwards towards here from. We don't have the numbers or firepower to throw them out of the garage, let alone move across the skyway towards ExoGeni."

"Thank you. Give me a minute to confer with my team." Shepard jerked his head, and the shore party moved in the direction indicated, a reasonable distance away from the colonist leaders.

"Commander, they're hiding something," Garrus, Lieutenant Alenko, the krogan, Gunnery Sergeant Williams, and Private Gladstone all said, immediately and in unison. A pause, then they all turned to glare at each other. _That was my line!_

"What would I ever do without you people," Commander Shepard said dryly. "Yes, I figured that as well. There's no way that a bunch of civilians with a couple of mall cops thrown in managed to just repel a full assault from the geth, and Fai Dan absolutely knows why these things are here."

"Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to get to the bottom of that mystery, it's going to have to wait. Improbable combat skills or no, these are still civilian survivors and they're still under threat from hostile forces. My initial plan was to dig in and defend Zhu's Hope until a full combat unit from the Alliance arrived, but that's obviously not happening on its own."

 _On its own? Oh, this should be good_.

Commander Shepard raised his omnitool and tapped in a set of commands. The device glowed and projected an image that Garrus instantly recognized: the complex of three skyscrapers where Zhu's Hope and the ExoGeni headquarters were located.

"Before we do anything else, we're going to have to wipe out that beachhead in the garage that Ms. Reynolds mentioned. That's the most immediate source of threat to the colonists. It'll be at the terminus of the skyway in our skyscraper, here," the end of the skyway where it disappeared into one of the massive buildings suddenly glowed pink on the projection, "and it shouldn't be too much trouble to find, though I imagine the geth will have dug in rather well there themselves by now. It'll most likely be a tough fight, but manageable. Once we've secured the garage is when it starts to get hard."

The shore party was dead quiet.

"We simply don't have the numbers or firepower to exterminate every geth in these skyscrapers ourselves, and that is an essential condition of our mission here being complete. These colonists also need food, water, medical attention, and a whole host of other things that we simply can't attend to. We need support from the Alliance. We can't get it as long as that geth cruiser is roaming around here jamming comms. Therefore, we need to neutralize that jamming signal, by any means necessary."

More silence from the shore party, who began looking awkwardly at each other. Except for the krogan, whose mouth had split wide in a predatory grin. _I was right. It was good. For a given definition of good. That definition being "insane"._

"Go on, say it," the Commander said wearily, looking at them.

Lieutenant Alenko tentatively raised his hand. "Sir, the geth jamming device is aboard their cruiser."

"That's correct, Lieutenant."

"Which is currently airborne."

"Also correct. We'll need to figure out a way to lure it to the ground at the ExoGeni headquarters in order to board it and disable it, or hope it lands of its own accord."

Corporal Chase raised her own hand. "Sir, how are we going to get to ExoGeni headquarters if it's across the skyway? The geth will probably have those spider tank things all over the skyway, we can't use the Mako if the _Normandy_ can't deliver it."

"There's a pedestrian walkway along the underside of the skyway, we'll use that."

Williams this time. "Sir, assuming we do manage to disable the jamming and call for the Alliance, what then?"

"Find a defensible spot in the ExoGeni headquarters and hold it until relieved. Ideally the geth will be too worried about us to bother with the colonists until the Alliance gets here."

"Sir, there could be hundreds of geth in that skyscraper. It'll be at least three days or longer for anything from the Alliance to get here. You expect the eleven of us to hold a couple rooms in there for that long?"

"Eight of us, Williams. I'll be leaving you and two of your fellow Marines behind to guard the _Normandy_ once you've helped clear the garage. We may be here to help the colonists, but that doesn't mean I trust them enough to leave my ship alone with them if they're lying to my face about vital information. If they try anything, you are to use nonlethal methods only to restrain them, understand?"

Commander Shepard looked around at them all. "I understand how difficult this is going to be. It's quite likely that some or most of us are going to be injured or killed over the course of the mission, but I want to reiterate that _we have no choice_. As it stands, the only other option available to us is to sit here with the colonists and hope the implacable killer robots get bored of whatever they're trying to do and go home. This is our only hope to survive and complete the mission right now, are we clear?"

When he'd received a muttered chorus of affirmatives and "Yes, sir"s, he nodded. "Then let's get started."

 _ **2120 Hours AST, April 27, 2183**_

 _ **Northwestern Terminus of Prothean Skyway, Approaching ExoGeni Headquarters**_

 _ **Feros, Theseus System, Attican Beta Cluster**_

Garrus's Krysae barked, once, twice, three times, loud enough for him to hear even over the thundering drums of _Die For The Cause_ blaring in his ear. Two hundred meters ahead, the last geth in between them and the yawning entranceway to the skyscraper containing the ExoGeni headquarters collapsed to the ground, two with sparking stumps where their "heads" had been a few moments before, and one with a large hole in its chest dribbling white conductive fluid.

 _Three more. That makes… how many does that make now? I think I lost track about three hours ago._

They had been slowly, painstakingly, creeping their way up the Prothean skyway that connected Zhu's Hope to the headquarters of ExoGeni for the better part of the past six hours. The massive highway, like every other structure on the planet, was choked with rubble, but they still would've made the trip in perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes at the most had they been able to use the Mako. Even on foot at a casual walk, it still ought to have been no more than an hour, had the skyway not been choked with geth in addition to rubble.

The geth frigate on Therum had deployed a full company of geth with heavy armor support. The light cruiser here was just over twice the size of that ship, and exponentially greater in volume; Garrus didn't even want to think about how many more compacted platforms it could store (though he was sure Tali could have told him if he'd been masochistic enough to ask). But whatever the number was, it had seemed as if all of them were crawling over the decaying road in the clouds.

Yet the _Normandy_ 's shore party had made it this far without any deaths, or indeed any injuries other than the odd bumps, bruises, and Private Gladstone's sprained ankle.

Mostly, that was thanks to the pedestrian walkway they'd made the vast majority of the trip on. The Protheans had apparently had absolutely zero fear of heights, so for the majority of the walkway's length it ran underneath the skyway, held in place by struts, with only a guardrail between you and an unimaginably long drop. As with everywhere else on Feros, the walkway was visibly decaying from the ravages of the elements and untold millennia; Garrus had "shit bricks", as the human expression went, when the krogan moved onto the thing for the first time, convinced in spite of himself that the fifty thousand year old concrete was going to give way under the great brute's bulk.

It hadn't, of course; after all, it was made out of the same material as the roadway above, and that was strong enough to handle the dozens of geth Armatures, Juggernauts, and Primes running around up there. The krogan was larger than any of the rest of the shore party by a considerable margin, but even the smallest of those geth heavy platforms was larger than him. Too large to fit down the ladders that connected the two lanes at regular intervals, which was why Commander Shepard had chosen to use the walkway in the first place.

So the geth had had to send down waves of regular troopers instead, while the big boys scrabbled futilely at the ladderholes above, their heavy firepower utterly wasted _. I wonder if the synthetics are capable of appreciating the irony there._

And when the geth troopers had reached the walkway, Garrus had greeted them with a bullet in seconds.

It was wonderful. He'd already seen his share of fighting since quitting CSec and joining up with Shepard—first the geth on Therum, then the "creeper" plant monsters on Chasca. But his fighting until now had been done with the Mako's cannon or his Phaeston assault rifle.

Not that he had anything against heavy cannon or assault rifles.

But this…

The walkway tracked directly under the roadway above, following its course, which meant that it was completely straight for hundreds of meters at a stretch. The moment geth began descending down the ladders, even before their metal feet hit the walkway, Garrus could see them and shoot them, long before their pulse rifles could return fire.

Commander Shepard had stuck him in the front the moment they'd all assembled on the walkway and begun to march, and the rest of the shore party had spent the entire time slowly filing along behind him while he worked his way forward in between popping distant geth. Garrus was vaguely aware of disgruntled muttering coming from over his shoulder; the human Marines were raring to fight geth themselves and get some payback for Eden Prime. They'd been denied the chance on Therum and Chasca, and had finally gotten a taste of robot busting in the garage, only to watch him hog all the kills. The krogan just wanted to fight in general.

Garrus didn't care. This was the most fun he'd had since Blackwatch. Oh, cracking a particularly difficult case in CSec had been rewarding enough, but this? This was what he'd been made for.

 _Blam blam blam blam blam blam blam blam blam. Oh, sniper rifle, I have missed you._

Sadly, it was going to have to stop. With the entrance to their target building up ahead, the fighting was going to revert to closer quarters, which meant it would be back to his assault rifle.

The logical part of Garrus's brain knew that was a very small price to pay for how absurdly lucky they'd been so far. No serious injuries, and the geth cruiser had even been obliging enough to come in and land, clinging to the left side of the skyscraper like a giant purple bug on a tree trunk. That had been the most obviously problematic part of Commander Shepard's plan, and the geth had seemingly played right into it.

Still, it was with a sigh of regret that Garrus changed weapons and shut off the music playing from his visor, as he exited the walkway and moved toward the cavernous entry to the skyscraper, the shore party filing out behind him and fanning out into a combat formation.

After the constant gunfire and turian march-rock that he'd been listening to for the last several hours, the sudden silence that surrounded them as they entered ExoGeni headquarters was unnerving.

No geth appeared out of any of the myriad side passages and hallways as the squad cautiously moved through what must once have been a combination of a parking garage and a lobby. No snipers opened up, no hoppers began bombarding them from the ceiling.

Nothing.

 _The geth are networked intelligences with open comm channels. Every single platform on this planet probably knew we were here the moment we landed. If they didn't, they knew when I started blowing them away on the walkway. They_ definitely _know now_.

 _The ones on the skyway will be closing in behind us, but there's also going to be a whole bunch here inside the building. They're deliberately not contesting the entranceway. Pulling back to ground of their choosing further inside._

Moments later, Commander Shepard relaxed his posture, motioned the squad to move closer, and confirmed it.

"I'm not necessarily sure why they'd do that. This is a great spot for a defense right here, particularly as it's more than large enough for all their heavies and we have no choice but to move through it. I can only assume the geth think they've got something even better further inside, possibly at the boarding spot for their ship."

"Regardless, we're going to keep moving. Unlike Zhu's Hope, ExoGeni never put up blueprints of their headquarters on the extranet, nor any other important information about it, so we're moving blind from here on out. The geth cruiser is clinging to the south side of the skyscraper, so we're going to move towards that side of the building and see what the situation is when we arrive. Corridors might be easy to get lost in, so I want you all to set an indicator for South on your helmet's HUD." Garrus flicked through options on his visor until he'd found the one marked _Map_ , then did as Shepard ordered. "Wrex, you don't have a helmet, so just follow the rest of us."

Shepard looked around, then moved towards one of the corridors on the south side of the entrance hall. The rest of them followed.

It didn't take long at all before they appreciated the wisdom of that order. The corridor the Commander had chosen was fairly roomy, but it had so many twists and turns and branches that they would've gotten lost almost as soon as they passed out of view of the entrance hall. As it was, they were able to consistently choose the path that would take them in a southerly direction, toward the geth cruiser and their objective.

With his sniper rifle no longer in play, Garrus moved back into the middle of the formation. Commander Shepard, Tali, and the krogan, all wielding shotguns, were on point. The slim form of the quarian girl looked out of place next to the muscular armored human and the massive krogan to the untrained eye, but the shield analyzer function in Garrus's visor told the truth. Her kinetic barriers were harder than diamond, stronger than even the top of the line stuff found in military armories. Tali had obviously made extensive modifications to them.

 _Again and again, she proves she shouldn't be underestimated_.

They'd been creeping through the corridors for about fifteen minutes, the pointed absence of geth in the heart of their base growing more unnerving by the second, when Garrus saw the krogan throw out his arm and stop Shepard and Tali, and by extension the rest of the shore party.

"Smell that?" The krogan asked, his rumbling voice pitched lower and quieter than usual but still clearly audible in the still air.

"Um, no. What exactly should I be smelling, Wrex?" The Commander's voice, too, was muffled. Part of Garrus's mind, the annoying part that always had trouble focusing on the task at hand, wondered what was the point. The geth, being machines, would hear the slightest whisper.

"Of course. You humans, just like all the other aliens, are blind as well as fragile." The krogan jerked his massive head in the direction of yet another side passage, his maw slightly parted. "Rotting meat, lots of it. Down that way."

The only part of Commander Shepard's face visible through the visor of his black-and-red helmet were his eyes, but Garrus saw the flicker of indecision that passed through them.

On the one hand, going down side passages in this maze was exactly what they were trying to avoid.

On the other hand, rotting meat here could mean only one thing.

There'd been around seventy or so scientists living and working in this dusty skyscraper, studying the ruins of Feros. Garrus couldn't imagine any of them were still alive.

The Commander raised his hand and silently motioned toward the passage the krogan had indicated.

It was only a few minutes down the new corridor before Garrus smelled it too, the sickly sweet stench of decay. A few minutes more, and they'd found the source.

It was the scene of a massacre. Around twenty or so human bodies were strewn around what looked like it might've once served the ExoGeni staff as a conference room. It was hard to tell for sure, with the bullet holes and gore covering every single inch of the place. It was even more trashed than the worst part of Zhu's Hope; the geth had used overwhelming force and firepower here.

As the squad crowded in through the room's only door, Garrus noted retching noises coming from the back as at least one of the human Marines found the sight too much, and withdrew out into the corridor. The scientists and security personnel lying in the room had very obviously been lying there for days, quite possibly a week, and were in an advanced state of decay. The smell was horrendous.

Garrus felt bile rising in his throat, but forced it back down. _Focus_. He looked around, absorbing the small details of the place.

There was only one entrance, and the room could fit a large number of people. It was a logical choice for a small number of security personnel to attempt to defend both themselves and a larger group of scientists when faced with a sudden and overwhelming assault. A logical choice, but a futile one. Garrus couldn't see a single destroyed geth platform amidst the dead organics, and the pockmarks riddling the back wall had clearly come from a minigun, of the sort Geth Primes carried according to Tali.

 _One geth. This was the work of one geth, within a few hours of the geth attack_. His hands clenched involuntarily around the stock of his Phaeston.

 _Those guards over there are wearing way heavier armor than Reynolds and Martinez back at Zhu's Hope, and there's more of them. I actually think that one is wearing a belt of grenades. Yet they were swatted aside with ease, and Zhu's Hope still lives_.

Commander Shepard moved to the center of the room, seemingly taking no notice of the carnage surrounding him. "There's nothing we can do for these people now. They should all be carrying some form of identification. Collect those, and anything else useful, like food, water, and ammunition. We'll move as soon as that's done."

The squad reluctantly began searching the bodies. Garrus bent and plucked an ID tag off the one nearest him. He'd had a basic grounding in English, the Alliance's official language, and could recognize the letters of the dead man's name. _Gavin Hossle_.

The scientist had nothing else of note on him. Garrus stowed the ID tag in a pouch on his armor, and moved on to the next.

They were on the move again within five minutes, away from the charnel house of the conference room. Shepard set a faster pace now, as if determined to find the source of the geth who'd done this and eradicate them.

South they moved through the skyscraper, through the twists and turns of the corridors, following the indicators on their HUD. At one point they had to go downwards by six floors when they came across a massive hole that had been blasted into the building, possibly by the geth cruiser or possibly by whatever catastrophe had wiped out the Protheans fifty thousand years before, then up two floors when they'd gotten around it. At no point did they see any geth, though they did encounter a few varren on the lowest floor that made the short-lived mistake of trying to attack them.

 _It feels as though we've walked for miles, and we're still in the same building. How the hell did the Protheans build this?_

They'd just taken yet another turn, into a dimly lit corridor that the first cursory glance told Garrus had trash and bones strewn all over the floor, when it happened.

A trio of gunshots split the air.

They were wild, not properly aimed, but even so one of them smashed into Tali's barriers above her arm and a second impacted dead center of mass on Shepard's torso. Neither did any harm. The third ricocheted off the wall four feet above the Commander's head.

The squad, their nerves wound unbearably tight from the tension of constantly expecting a geth ambush at any moment, reacted instantly, spinning as one toward the source of the shots and raising their weapons to perforate the foe.

Garrus was in the middle of bringing his own rifle to bear when his brain recognized the report of a human Predator pistol. Instead, he quickly turned and shoved down the muzzle of Corporal Greico's weapon next to him before the man could riddle the terrified young human woman with bullets. Beside him, Commander Shepard was shouting for everyone to stand down.

The young woman crept, quivering, from the shadows where she'd been cowering.

"I'm so sorry. I thought you were those robots, I thought they'd finally found me, I thought you were…. I thought I was going to…"

She was in terrible shape. She wasn't visibly injured that Garrus could see, but her ExoGeni lab suit was in tatters and she was gaunt to the point of looking starved. Now that he had the chance to examine the area more thoroughly, Garrus spied the carcass of a varren a few feet away, missing one of its legs. There were no signs of a fire; the human girl had eaten it raw.

Commander Shepard noticed it too. He moved forward, pulling a ration bar from his belt, and offered it to her. "It's okay. You're safe now, we'll take care of you. Can you tell us your name? Can you tell us what happened?"

The young woman accepted the ration bar, tore it free from its wrapper, and attacked it ravenously. She didn't answer Shepard's question until she'd finished the whole thing. "I'm Lizbeth Baynham. I'm- I was a xenobiologist on the research staff here at ExoGeni's outpost." _A xenobiologist? Why would they need one of those here?_ "What's today's date?"

"April 27th."

"Wow." Lizbeth Baynham closed her eyes for a moment. "So it's been… twelve days then."

Shepard, who'd taken off his helmet to talk to her, frowned. "The colonists at Zhu's Hope said it had been eight days since they were attacked."

"The robots didn't attack. Not at first." Baynham seemed to be sinking into her memories. "On the 15th, there was… a turian. He had some asari with him, some krogan, and some of the robots, but he was in charge. He had a crazy ship, too, bigger than anything I've ever seen, too big to fit into the hangar at Zhu's Hope. It looked like a giant cuttlefish. He came here and talked with management, Jeong, Fitzroy, Mattison and the rest."

 _Saren. Saren was here, personally. Less than two days after he'd attacked Eden Prime, he came straight here_.

Garrus was still reeling from that revelation when Baynham continued. "I don't know what they said. They were in conference room A for about an hour, then the turian left and took all his people and robots with him. They went to Zhu's Hope and spent the rest of the day there, then they left. Three days later, the robots came back and attacked."

 _Fai Dan knew all of this. Hell, he must've spoken to Saren face to face. Spirits, are the colonists working for Saren? But then why would the geth attack them?_

"I hid when they attacked. I've been hiding here ever since. I haven't eaten anything except the lunch I was carrying on me that day and this varren that came in here two days ago. I don't know if anyone else survived, it was so chaotic, my mother works here too, I got her the job, if I survived maybe she did…"

Garrus remembered the massacre they'd found and cringed, his mandibles pressing tight to his jaw. Commander Shepard spoke quietly.

"I'm sorry. Do you have any idea what the turian might have been doing at Zhu's Hope?"

The young woman hesitated. Clearly, she did have an idea.

"Do you?"

"The… the only thing interesting over there is the Thorian."

"What is the Thorian?"

Lizbeth Baynham hesitated again.

"Tell the Commander everything," Lieutenant Alenko urged her. "Whatever ExoGeni was doing, when it comes out they were cooperating with Saren they'll go down hard. You don't owe them anything."

"It's… a plant. It lives directly underneath Zhu's Hope. It's huge, it takes up most of the lower floors of that skyscraper. The whole purpose of this colony was to study it. It was originally on the planet's surface, but it moved itself up into the skyscraper when the colony was established."

 _Wait. A plant? A plant that moved itself?_

An image flashed through Garrus's mind then, something his eyes had registered at the time but his brain hadn't. The destroyed geth platforms in Zhu's Hope, stacked neatly against an out of the way wall, more than half of them with twisted, melted, and corroded armor and frames.

Corrosion. Acid damage.

He almost groaned aloud.

They'd been right all along. There were creepers here… fighting alongside the colonists instead of killing them.

 _The clippings on Chasca originally came from here, didn't they?_

It was another mystery that Garrus was suddenly confident would be solved very soon. The pieces were falling into place.

 **A/N: Admit it, you all thought I'd forgotten about this story.**

 **In all seriousness, I can't apologize enough for how late this is. There's been a variety of external circumstances that have made it harder for me to write, from putting the final revisions on my thesis back in February to working a physically demanding full time job over the last few months, but the bottom line is I had plenty of time and I spent months procrastinating. This thing is 47 pages long in Word; I wrote precisely 0 of them in March thru May, and 25 of them in the last four days. It's easy enough when I stop hiding from it.**

 **The good news for you all is that I have now stopped hiding from it, and I guarantee the next one will be out within the next few weeks as it's supposed to be. If you thought this one was light on action, you needn't fret; the next one will be gunfire nearly nonstop from start to finish as Shepard and Co deal with the geth and the Thorian.**

 **Keep an eye out for** _ **Jane's Fighting Ships**_ **as well sometime in the next few days; the first chapter is almost done and I'd originally planned to release them both together, but I eventually decided to just get this out as soon as possible.**

 **Also, Ashley 2 wasn't completely revised before I published it back around New Year's, so it's spent the last six months with two Marines just being referred to as Q and P, which were just supposed to be placeholders while I wrote. I'm putting out a revised version with their actual names alongside this chapter.**


	14. M Shepard IV

_**0105 Hours AST, April 28**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 2183**_

 _ **Approaching South Face, ExoGeni HQ**_

 _ **Feros, Theseus System, Attican Beta Cluster**_

He moved, slowly and steadily, through the decaying, dark and dusty halls of the colossal ancient skyscraper, his shotgun half raised, his battle rifle compacted and slotted onto the back of his hardsuit. Urdnot Wrex moved a few feet alongside and behind him to his left, Tali occupying the same position to his right, the rest of the team spaced out behind them stretching back into the gloom. Lizbeth Baynham was in the dead center of the group, as protected a position as he could give her. Although he still sensed she was keeping information from them, just like the Zhu's Hope colonists, leaving a defenseless civilian in the bowels of the structure to starve or be eaten by varren would be unacceptable, so he'd insisted she come with them when they moved out.

Always moving.

The exhaustion had been with him for so long now, he'd almost forgotten what it was like to be without it. A fog of weariness, clouding the edges of his sight, constantly hovering behind him, threatened to envelop him if for a moment he forgot to keep busy, forgot to keep moving.

He was no stranger to fatigue; the Alliance Navy and Marine Corps both hammered into their recruits the ability to ignore it for extended periods, the mantra that "fatigue is mostly mental", from the first day of boot camp. The ICI had taken it several steps further. By the end stages of N4 training his entire battalion hadn't slept for nearly a week, stuck out in the field on exercises. They'd all begun having shared hallucinations of pizza deliverymen walking up to the bivouac before the instructors relented and took them back to base. To this day he only ordered carryout.

Shepard could've handled it, then, if not for the visions.

They haunted his every moment now, waking and sleeping. He'd heard distant screams when giving Pressley and Joker the orders for Feros. When he'd gone down into Engineering two days ago to briefly confer with Adams, the reactor core had changed itself into a burning planet and back again before his eyes. Even now, moving through this Prothean ruin, he had the stench of their burning flesh lingering in his nostrils. It was driving him mad, and the visions only seemed to be growing stronger. Worst of all, they seemed to be spreading throughout his mind, unlocking other memories, personal ones, ones that he'd buried so deeply he'd thought he'd forgotten entirely. He'd had his first nightmare about Akuze in two years the night before entering the Theseus system.

 _If something doesn't change soon, I won't have a choice. I'll have to contact Fleet Command and the Council both and ask to be pulled off the mission_. The very thought of admitting failure left a foul taste in his mouth, but what choice did he have?

Before it came to that, though, he had to fix Feros.

So far, everything had seemingly gone perfectly. They'd landed, made contact with a surprising number of civilian survivors at Zhu's Hope, established a plan to rid the colony of hostile geth forces, and had begun carrying out the plan without a single severe injury or death. Yet he couldn't shake the nagging feeling, completely separate from the omnipresent Prothean visions, that it was all about to fall apart. Leaving out the giant plant that was apparently hiding directly beneath Zhu's Hope (and his ship), he and his team were now deep inside a building filled with hostile geth that had had more than ample time to set a trap for them.

Shepard reviewed the information on this area of the building he'd been able to coax from Baynham before they set out again. The girl had long since lost her omnitool and any blueprints it might've had, so he'd had to settle for her disjointed recollections.

"The south face of the building is where we kept our shuttles and skycars," Baynham had said. "You know, if we wanted to travel somewhere else on the planet to do research. It's mostly maintenance bays and hangar areas."

"Can you describe the layout of one of these bays for me?" he'd asked.

"Um… big? Filled with maintenance-y stuff? I don't know, I didn't work there and I hardly ever took a shuttle anyplace. Coming from down here, you'd enter by a side door, you're not supposed to bring in equipment this way. There's some catwalks near the ceiling, in case they needed to do work on the bay doors… I don't know if that's helpful…"

It had been. Even that little bit of information had told him everything he needed to know. _That's where they are_. __

It would be a brutally effective defensive position. The single small door leading into the maintenance bay would force his squad to enter one at a time, two if they were lucky. Every geth in the area would be set up with its pulse rifle trained on the entrance. The catwalks would allow the robots to put even more platforms in position, likely armed with sniper rifles or heavy weapons. His team would be chokepointed and efficiently cut down just as they'd done to the creepers back on Chasca; the irony was not lost on him.

And according to Baynham's hazy recollections, they'd be reaching the maintenance bay within minutes.

Knowingly walking into a trap, on unfavorable ground, against superior forces. Had he any other choice, he'd never have considered it for even an instant. But he didn't have a choice. This was the only way to the geth ship that was preventing them from contacting the Alliance and summoning reinforcements.

The squad rounded a corner, climbed up two more flights of stairs, then began moving down another hallway. As they neared the end of the hallway, where it turned a ninety degree corner to the right, Shepard heard hurrying footsteps behind him, then heard a tap on his shoulder (he couldn't actually feel it through his hardsuit).

"The side door to the maintenance bay on this level is just around this corner," Baynham said. "The robots… the geth… they're going to be waiting in there, aren't they? Do you mind if I just wait right here, because I won't be much use against them or anything-,"

"Yes, that's probably best," Shepard agreed. He held up a closed fist, the signal for "halt", then paused for a brief moment as they clustered around him. Even that was almost enough to make him keel over; he could feel the sea of exhaustion sweeping up around him.

"I'm presuming you all heard what Miss Baynham just told me; in case you didn't, the moment we round this corner we're going to be in the geth's gunsights."

"Unfortunately, we only know the bare minimum about this room, and nothing about how hostile defenses are set up, so we'll only be able to come up with a plan once we're inside and in contact. We won't be able to hear anything over the gunfire, and radios are still down until we take out the geth cruiser's jamming, so keep an eye on me and watch for my hand signals."

"Wrex, you'll go in first." That was only common sense; the krogan had reasonable shields, thick armor, thick skin, and natural regenerative properties. He was the natural choice for the first one through in situations like these. "Tali and I will go in immediately on his heels." He had no qualms about risking himself, and though he still couldn't shake his misgivings about putting the seemingly fragile quarian girl in harm's way, let alone the vanguard, he had to force himself to do the practical thing in combat. "We'll draw their fire and push as far into the room as we can, driving them off any suitable cover in the vicinity of the entranceway."

"The rest of you are to wait five seconds after we've gone in, then follow. Your absolute priority targets are going to be any geth platforms on catwalks or the ceiling. We cannot have them raining fire down on our heads. Once that's taken care of, engage any remaining targets you see then look to me for your next move. Any questions?"

Private Gladstone raised his hand. "Sir, you're just going to run in there? No flashbangs or smoke? I've got a couple here on my belt, I could just-,"

"No point against electronic sensors that see through both those things, Private. Okay, then, we move on three. One… two…"

Wrex was moving before the word "three" made it past Shepard's lips. With a roar, the krogan barreled around the corner, to be greeted by a storm of geth gunfire, the streaks of staccato white light spraying into the wall.

Shepard's feet began moving seemingly of their own accord to follow, Tali right beside him. His hand moved to stow his shotgun and switch to his battle rifle, in preparation for a shootout from behind cover, then stopped. _No… wait…_

He kept his shotgun out, and gathered his biotics around him, as he turned the corner.

Shepard's shields almost immediately depleted by fifty percent before he'd taken three steps forward into the maintenance bay, even with Wrex drawing the brunt of fire up ahead. The krogan had taken cover behind a large shuttle some twenty feet into the room, orange splatters on the floor and his armor showing where he'd been wounded.

Even as he sprinted into the maintenance bay at full pace, Shepard's brain kicked into overdrive, painting a full picture of the area and the enemy. The surge of adrenaline, better than any combat stim or caffeinated drink, banished his fatigue back into the far corners of his mind.

The first thing he noticed was that the "catwalk" Lizbeth Baynham had mentioned wasn't a catwalk, so much as it was a wall that didn't quite reach the ceiling, thick enough for several geth to stand atop and rain down fire, and separating one huge maintenance bay into two moderately large ones. A slender flight of stairs ran up it and down the other side along the right-hand wall—other than that, there was no way through it.

The second thing he noticed was the large metal doors that made up the left-hand wall of the bay- or at least should've made it up. Instead, the doors had been retracted into the floor and ceiling, and a massive purple… claw… had been jammed into the bay from outside. Beyond, where there should've been the endless sky of Feros, there was only the hull of the geth cruiser.

The third thing he noticed was the enemy. There were somewhere between twenty and thirty geth on this side of the partition, he couldn't get a precise count at a glance. They were arrayed in a loose semicircle and with their backs up against the partition, some sixty feet away from the door he and Tali were sprinting through. One of them was pure white, towering over the others, cradling something that looked suspiciously like a minigun in its massive metal arms. He could already hear it spooling up. _A Prime_.

All this, Shepard took in in the few seconds it took to enter the maintenance bay.

He cursed inwardly. He'd been counting on them being closer to the door, which would have allowed his team to roll over some of them immediately as they came through, cutting down on the enemy's numbers before they became bogged down in a prolonged firefight.

Instead, the geth had massed at range, with hoppers on the ceiling and snipers atop the partition-a beam from one passed inches from his left ear-neutralizing any attempt to take cover. Not that there was much close to the door, other than the shuttle Wrex was behind; a couple of work benches and an old model skycar. The geth had dragged almost everything over to their end.

His team was going to be massacred.

 _Unacceptable_.

His posture changed mid-stride even as he ran, his biotics surging through him as his entire body moved in a control gesture he'd practiced but never yet used in combat. A blue haze surrounded him and space distorted as he flew forward.

One instant, he'd just crossed the threshold into the maintenance bay, the geth safely pouring fire on him from sixty feet away. The next, he'd erased the distance between them, slamming into the nearest robotic platform with the force of a hauler truck.

That geth went flying, smashing through two more of its fellows before it smacked into the partition. With the energy from his biotic _charge_ dissipating around him, Shepard wheeled on the nearest remaining geth and discharged his shotgun straight into its torso, then used the recoil from that shot to align on the head of another and blow it clean off.

The swarm of geth he'd charged into seemed almost taken aback at first, like their counterparts on Therum had when he'd squeezed the Mako into a narrow path that it shouldn't have been able to fit down. But the shock was already wearing off even as the third geth fell to his assault, platforms backpedaling and raising their pulse rifles towards him, the ponderous white Prime turning its minigun in his direction…

Too late. He'd accomplished what he needed to. His team, in the opening he'd created, poured through the side door, their own weapons opening up. Even as he ducked away, rolling behind the nearest piece of cover, a destroyed hopper crashed down from the ceiling a foot away from him, its perforated frame sparking.

The maintenance bay dissolved into a roar of noise and gunfire. From behind the low wall that he'd sought refuge by, Shepard could see the weapons of his team flashing as they eliminated the hoppers and geth on the ceiling and partition. Streams of fire from the geth on their level were pouring into the sides of the shuttle and skycar they were hiding behind, but there was no indication any of them had penetrated to injure any of his team. He'd given them the opening they'd needed to get into the bay and get safely into cover but now it looked like a stalemate…

 _Wait. What's the Prime doing?_ He could only hear the sounds of his own team's weapons and the standard geth pulse rifle, no hint of the screaming buzz any heavy rotary weapon made.

Shepard chanced a peek over his cover, nearly ducking back down instinctively as a stray round flared his shields.

The white geth Prime was standing nearly motionless amidst a swarm of its smaller fellows. As the last of the geth that had been on the ceiling and partition toppled off and the organics began leaning out of cover to exchange fire with the ones on their level, the Prime's only response was for the light of its ocular sensors to flicker from red to blue and back again.

Then it turned towards the smaller geth troopers surrounding it, spooled up its minigun, and unleashed hell on them.

 _Well okay then_. Within seconds, all the geth in the maintenance bay were smoking piles of scrap, including the Prime; the organics had turned their weapons on it once all the smaller geth troopers were down. It hadn't resisted.

According to the clock on Shepard's HUD, the whole engagement had taken just over four minutes.

He moved swiftly out from behind his cover as the team moved forward into the maintenance bay. "Any casualties?" There weren't. Other than Wrex, who'd taken nonlethal wounds on his entrance that he'd quickly regenerate from, everyone was fine.

Shepard hoped that whatever incredible run of good luck they'd been having so far on Feros would last, but he knew it probably wouldn't. "Double check every one of those geth, make sure they're all down permanently. There'll be more geth on the other side of the partition that we'll have to engage in just a moment. I want everyone except Garrus, Dubyansky, and Grenado to cover off on the stairs leading over it."

Only once every single geth in the immediate area was neutralized did he want to move on to thinking about how to board the geth ship and bring down this jamming signal. Shepard stowed his shotgun and drew his Mattock. "Dubyansky, go back into the corridor and bring Baynham in here, I've got a bad feeling that there may have been geth behind us looking to pin us between two forces."

Unfortunately, that bad feeling turned out to be entirely correct. A scant minute after Private Dubyansky had retrieved Lizbeth Baynham from the outside corridor and stuffed her safely in the most out of the way and protected corner he could find, a large group of geth swarmed in from the side door they'd used, just as the bots on the other side of the partition made their first attempt to push over it.

As the first geth appeared through the side door, Shepard moved into cover alongside Garrus, thereby dividing the squad evenly: four facing one way, four the other.

The first geth to move through the doorway fell to a burst from Garrus's Phaeston. The second Shepard took out himself, two shots to the chest to lower the bot's shields and a third to its flashlight head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Private Grenado overarm a grenade towards the door; the blast and shrapnel took out geth numbers three, four, and five.

Now the layout of the maintenance bay was working in their favor instead of against them. The geth trying to attack through the side door faced the same problems of distance and sparse cover that Shepard's squad had when they'd come in, except they didn't have a reckless biotically charging commander to provide a key distraction. The geth trying to come up over the stairs could not shoot at them until they were at the top or coming down on the near side, where they were easy targets. Both groups of robots were chokepointed by the obstacles in between them and the organics.

Despite attacking the organics from two sides at once, with superior numbers and firepower on both of them, the geth were being shredded.

 _I'd say God is smiling on me, but that doesn't work with these visions_. Shepard ducked back down behind the cover he was sharing with Garrus, angrily popping his Mattock with the heel of his hand to free a spent thermal clip that didn't quite want to leave the gun. _Maybe one of the Marines has been an especially good person the last few days?_

Regardless of whether God was watching over one of his Marines, Shepard couldn't believe that his luck was still holding. He popped back up to squeeze off another few rounds at the geth. The group that had tried to use the side door was now covering in the corridor beyond it; one made the mistake of leaning out a fraction to return his fire. He yanked it through the door into the maintenance bay with a biotic _pull,_ where it was promptly perforated by four rifles. _One less_.

He hadn't checked on Kaidan, Wrex, Tali, and Private Gladstone defending the stairs over the partition since this new firefight began, trusting that the lack of screams of agony or geth bullets in the back of his head meant that things were going as well for them as they were for him. With a momentary lull on his end as the geth covered in the corridor, he took a look backward to confirm that.

At first he couldn't quite make sense of what he saw. Kaidan, Wrex, and Gladstone were hunkered in their cover at the base of the stairs, not firing their weapons. A single geth trooper was standing at the top of the stairs, facing back down the way it had come and exchanging fire on its comrades jockeying up from below. Even as he watched, a hail of shots from below collapsed its shields and dropped it next to three other destroyed platforms, all of which were similarly facing back the way they'd come. _What the actual fu… oh_.

Tali was sitting in cover, like the three males next to her, but unlike them she was looking up the stairs with her left arm braced on top of the workbench she was behind, and her right hand working her omni-tool. A fifth geth appeared on the top of the stairs. Tali tapped in a rapid series of commands into the glowing orange interface of her 'tool. The trooper halted, twitched… and did an abrupt about face and opened fire on the geth behind it.

 _… so THAT'S what happened to that Prime earlier._ Shepard didn't know whether to be extremely impressed with Tali for doing something he'd thought was impossible, or furious with her for not telling him she could hack geth. He settled for both.

He cast a quick look back at the side door. The geth there were still bunkering down, not showing much of a desire to advance forward into gunfire once more. _Mistake_.

Shepard leaned over and tapped Garrus's shoulder. "I'm going to take Dubyansky and begin to push over the partition. I'm going to leave you and Grenado here to keep watch on the corridor and keep them off our backs. Can you handle it?" The turian's only response was to carefully put his assault rifle down on the ground and draw his sniper rifle from its slot on his back. Shepard didn't quite get that; the distance to the corner the geth were hiding behind was well under what he'd normally consider the minimum practical for that weapon. Maybe Garrus just felt more comfortable with a sniper rifle in hand.

Shrugging, Shepard collected Dubyansky and moved over to the base of the stairs.

Tali's fifth hacked geth had by now succumbed to the fate of the four before it, lying smoking in a heap atop the stairs, and no sixth had yet appeared to replace it. _Surprised it took them that long to learn their lesson_. "Kaidan, sitrep?"

"Haven't even had a chance to fire my gun yet, Commander," his Marine commander said dryly. "Tali here has been doing all the work. I thought it was impossible to hack geth."

"It _is_ impossible, I haven't been hacking them-,"

"You got them to shoot at their friends by asking nicely? I wish I'd known that was all it took, I'm Canadian, I can ask nicely better than anyone."

"I don't even know what that is! I've just been reversing their IFF detection programs, it doesn't remotely affect core processes at all and has to be maintained against attempts by the CPU to restore from backup-,"

"Enough," Shepard cut in. "Discuss technical specifics on your own time back on the ship. Have you been able to notice any difference in their volume of fire that's been coming up at the ones you've hacked?"

"I haven't been hacking them!"

"I said _ENOUGH._ Kaidan?"

"It's tough to tell, Commander. Definitely still some over there, the last one got dropped just like the ones before it. But they look like they've given up trying to come over here, so we're not going to get any more free kills on them."

"My thoughts too. I guess the only solution is we have to go over and take it to them, again."

That got a trademark toothy grin from Wrex, who'd been silent until now. "I was waiting for you to say that, Shepard." The krogan shifted his great bulk from behind the cover he'd been semi-hiding behind (it was far too small to conceal him entirely) in preparation for, undoubtedly, charging up and over the stairs at whatever foe awaited them beyond.

"Stay where you are, Wrex."

"What?"

"Stay where you are. I'll take a look myself, then figure out a plan."

Wrex did not look happy at that, but he knuckled under. Which was good, because it saved Shepard from having to explain the logic behind his decision. He could see several holes in the mesh between the plates on the krogan's armor where he'd been shot on the initial entrance to the maintenance bay, still stained with orange blood. The wounds themselves were already half-healed, but the fact that they'd been there at all worried Shepard.

 _He was damn lucky that Prime hadn't had time to spool up its minigun before Tali hacked it, we all were. Krogan might be able to regenerate arms and legs in a few weeks, but that won't help us here_.

He didn't waste time with further discussion, but moved forward and slowly began to crawl up the stairs.

The mess of trashed geth platforms covering the small landing at the top of the stairs made it difficult to raise his head up stealthily and take a peek over to the other side, particularly without disturbing any of the wrecked geth and causing a clattering mess that would give him away, but he managed it. Shepard propped his arms on the last step before the top, slowly pushing up his neck and craning his head for a better view…

And caught a geth bullet right in the center of his forehead.

Thankfully, it was only a single shot from a standard pulse rifle, and his shields were at full charge, so the effect was reduced to merely that of a slap across the face from an angry woman rather than splattering his brains across the back wall.

Still, it was enough to make him lose his balance and slide back down the stairs, as a stream of fire from angry geth soared through the space where his head had been, pockmarking the ceiling.

"I'm all right! I'm all right!" Shepard yelled, waving off Tali, Gladstone, Dubyansky, and Kaidan, who were all frantically scrambling towards him. He accessed his helmet's vidcam; he'd only peeked over the top of the partition for a split second before the geth had nailed him, but that should've been enough time to catch a picture of what was on the other side.

"We have five more geth on the other side. No Primes, but one is a bit larger than a normal trooper, painted red. Standing in the back. Other four are standard troopers."

"Red?" Tali asked. "Does it have tanks on its back?"

"Ah… yes. Tell me that's not a flamethrower."

"It is. That's a Juggernaut."

Shepard vaguely recalled her mentioning Juggernauts in that brief primer she'd given in the Mako's cabin on Therum, but didn't recall her saying anything about flamethrowers. Or had she? The fatigue had been pushed back into the corners of his mind by the immediate needs of battle and caffeinated combat stims, but his memories were clouded.

Didn't matter at the moment. That geth and its buddies were just another problem to solve, which would allow them to solve the next problem of the cruiser, which would allow them to solve the next problem…

A flamethrower was good and bad, for a weapon arming an opponent. Good, because humans had been torching each other since long before they achieved space flight, and the tactical counter-play to flamers had been established almost as long ago: shoot the tank. Explosion. Dead flamethrower operator, as well as anyone standing within a close enough distance to get sprayed with the burning fuel. The modern era and the introduction of omnitools had made using an overload on flamethrower tanks a viable option as well; models seen these days had electronic regulators on the fuel pumps. Fry those and an explosion would soon follow. Shepard didn't have the necessary program on his omnitool, but he knew Kaidan did, and Tali almost certainly did as well.

The bad was that flamethrowers were, if possible, even more lethal to their targets than they'd been back in the days of Peleliu or Iwo Jima. They completely bypassed kinetic and biotic barriers; those stopped solid objects moving at high speeds, not energy discharges. The burning fuel stuck to, and burned through, any exposed surface: armor, bodysuit underlay, flesh. Get painted with it and you were in for a very long and very painful stay in a hospital ship at the very best.

 _It's going to be whoever gets the first shot off. And that thing's already zeroed in on the stairs, just waiting for someone to expose themselves for the few seconds it needs._

Shepard considered his options, running through them in his mind as quickly as he could; just a few feet away, Garrus and Private Grenado's rifles barked simultaneously as the geth in the corridor made a tentative push.

 _Just have Wrex charge in like he wants? Nope, he might take most or all of them down, but at the cost of getting roasted. If I remember right, fire is one of the very few things that eliminates krogan regenerative abilities. Not worth losing him over five geth._

 _Can't let anyone get painted by that thing, can't get a clear shot at it as long as it stays on the far side of the partition covered by its buddies, can't drag it up and over with biotics to get a clear shot without the proper control gesture, and that requires freedom of movement that you don't have belly down on the stairs…_

 _Come on, man, you survived Elysium, you survived the Theshaca Raids, you survived Akuze. How the hell are you stumped by five robots and a wall?_

Shepard thumped his fist against his thigh in frustration. The inside of his forearm plating clacked against something on his belt. He glanced down, and almost screamed out of embarrassed anger. _The fucking obvious solution, and I forgot I even had them_ …

It took less than twenty seconds after that. Two frag grenades hurled over the top of the stairs in the general direction of the waiting (and Shepard imagined, very surprised) geth. Two sharp bangs as the grenades detonated, followed by a louder fiery explosion that illuminated the ceiling.

"On me. Dubyansky, collect Baynham and bring her with us." Shepard waved to everyone else clustered around the stairs, then hurried up and over them, on his feet this time.

The far side of the partition looked much the same as the one he'd just come from: open space, large landing claw from geth cruiser sticking through the open bay doors, the odd shuttle and skycar lying around waiting for maintenance that would never come.

There were a few key differences, though.

Most obviously, the four burning geth and blackened pieces of a fifth scattered around the area. The burning conductive fluid seeping from their remains smelled hideous as it congealed and blackened, reaching into his mind and calling forth memories of-

 _NO. Stop it_.

There were also a set of consoles along the far wall that weren't there on the other side of the partition. He didn't know their purpose yet, but hazarded a guess at something to do with maintaining vehicles. _Brilliant, aren't I?_

There was also a doorway along the right hand wall, the same wall that the stairs were on. He couldn't yet see through it, but that excited him more than anything.

There was obviously no way aboard the geth ship from this maintenance bay. If they were going to find one, they'd need to move up to the next floor in the building, or to the one beyond that, until they found whatever docking umbilical it was using to shove soldiers onto Feros.

"Fan out. Look for anything useful on the geth themselves, make sure there's nothing hiding in the corners." As the squad moved to carry out his orders, Baynham gingerly picking her way down the stairs behind them, Shepard quickened his pace towards the doorway.

To his vast disappointment, the doorway did not lead to a new set of stairs in the building, capable of taking them to a new floor. It was just a small side room, crammed with computers and a few experiment tables.

"This is… was… the preliminary experiment room." Shepard looked over his shoulder to see Lizbeth Baynham standing at his shoulder. "We'd enter our immediate findings into the computer mainframe from here after we got back from expeditions elsewhere on the planet, or log the details of where we were going and what we expected to find before we left."

"This hooks into ExoGeni's main computer system here?"

"It did. I don't know if it still does, the geth might have damaged something here, or somewhere else in the building…"

"Do you have access to it?"

"I… no. No, I don't, I'm sorry." Lizbeth retreated before he could ask her anything else, moving back towards the center of the room, near to Wrex's hulking form.

Shepard stared after her. She'd already told them much, and given them the broad idea of what the geth were doing here with the mention of that "Thorian" plant creature under Zhu's Hope, but it was becoming more and more obvious that she was still sitting on something big. He couldn't fathom what or why, especially with his brain running on half capacity. Time enough to figure it out once every hostile on the planet was neutralized.

Still, if the computers here in this side room hooked into ExoGeni's mainframe, there might be some useful information here. Perhaps a clue at what it was that Baynham was hiding, if she still proved close-mouthed later on. He walked into the side room, squinting at one of the consoles.

 _I don't have the first idea about hacking computer systems, since Baynham can't or won't get us in. Need to get Tali to take a look at this, or Kaidan. Maybe Garrus, once we finish off the geth in the corridor and he can come over here_.

He thought he saw a flicker in his peripheral vision and turned his head sharply towards it, bringing his Mattock into line as he did so. There was nothing, just an empty corner.

 _Fucking visions_. He placed his rifle on the nearest experiment table and hesitantly tapped the screen of the console he was standing in front of. To his delight, it turned on.

 _It still has power! Not a way to take out the geth ship and its jamming signal, but this can let us learn what ExoGeni's been…_

The shotgun blast slammed into his right kidney, instantly completely depleting his shields. He fell against the computer console from the force of it, instinctively turning the motion into a roll towards the experiment table where he'd placed his rifle. He grabbed it up and spun towards his attacker.

He caught only a brief glimpse of a single geth, the size of a normal trooper but painted black. Even as he brought his rifle into line and his finger tightened on the trigger, it faded out of sight. An active cloaking device.

 _Ah shit_.

There was absolutely no sign of the thing, no distorted air like "invisible" enemies gave off in video games. He frantically searched for a target, the beeping of his depleted barriers shrieking in the earpieces of his helmet, years of drill on conservation of fire making him hesitant to just start shooting randomly.

 _Why though? Why am I hesitating?_

The report of the geth's weapon hadn't been that loud, and it had fired during another burst of gunshots from Grenado and Garrus on the far side of the partition. It might not have been heard by the rest of the squad just outside the room.

He had five friendlies who might be about to obliviously do nothing while he got terminated just a few feet away.

He drew breath to yell for help, to get Kaidan or Wrex in here to help him kill this thing, to if nothing else provide a distraction while his shields recharged….

Too late. An invisible robotic fist came out of nowhere, driving into his solar plexus with enough force to crack the chestplate, doubling him over and pushing his inhaled air right back out again with a huff. What distinctly felt like a shotgun butt slammed into the side of his helmet, sending him crashing over into an experiment table and then to the floor, his Mattock sailing away to the far side of the room.

His head ringing, Commander Shepard stared up into a tri-barreled geth shotgun. Who stuck three barrels on a shotgun, anyway?

 _Welp. So much for the Lion of Elysium. Sorry for the epic fail, mom_. He wondered if the geth would allow him a moment more for an ironic laugh before it blew his head off.

"Shepard! Shepard! Keelah, Shepard, I just found a- SHEPARD!"

Shepard and the black geth both looked towards the sound of the voice. For a split second, Tali was framed in the doorway, staring stunned at the sight of her commander prone on the ground with a geth shotgun to his head. Then all three of them exploded into motion, everything happening in a blur.

Faced with a choice between a beaten target and a new, active threat, the geth turned its body and its weapon toward Tali, even as her hand flew toward the small of her back where she'd stowed her own shotgun. The logical choice for it to make, but the wrong one. The moment his head didn't have three barrels pointing at it, Shepard thrust his right arm forward in the simplest biotic gesture of all.

The black geth smashed into the far wall of the room with enough force to crack a human or turian's spine. The robot was far too tough to be destroyed by that, naturally—it slid to the ground, landing in a crouch. As Shepard scrambled to his feet, accompanied by the indescribably sweet _bweeooooooppp_ of his shields recharging, the geth sparked and faded from sight once more.

"Tali! Stay where you are, it's got a cloaking device! Don't let it out of this room! Kaidan! Wrex! GET IN HERE NOW!" He drew on his inner reserves of biotic energy again, reinforcing his shields with a barrier, if the bot blasted him at point blank range again he'd be able to retaliate. He couldn't believe he hadn't done that immediately the moment the thing had shown up. _Fuck these stupid Prothean visions, slagging my brain like this, if I die and I meet the Prothean that made that goddamn beacon I'll kill him all over again._

His Mattock was still on the other side of the room where it had been tossed, no time to get it, his own shotgun would have to do. Two shotguns on one in a small room but the one was invisible.

He heard the pounding footsteps of Kaidan, Wrex, Gladstone, and Dubyansky outside the room. What the hell was taking them so long? They were only supposed to be a few feet away!

He scanned the room, the thing was invisible but maybe if it disturbed its environment or kicked a piece of rotten duracrete or something he could—

He'd never have seen it normally, but his brain, absolutely flooded by adrenaline, saw a piece of paper twitch, as if it'd been trodden on by an invisible foot, only a few feet away from—

"TALI!"

The roar of his shotgun mixed with that of the geth. His own aim, not being actually able to see his target, was off. Maybe half the pellets in the blast hit the black robot. The geth, on the other hand, discharged its weapon straight into Tali's stomach.

The quarian girl's shields flared, but held. Tali staggered under the impact, recovered, and pulled her own weapon into line. Her return shot, directed into shields that Shepard's shot had already weakened, dropped them entirely.

The geth took a step back… then transformed into a spray of white conductive fluid and mangled metal as Shepard and Tali blasted it again, along with the rest of the squad, who'd all crammed themselves into the doorway to hose it down with fire.

A moment's ringing silence fell, broken only by the ruined heap of the geth clattering to the floor.

"Commander, are you all right? What just happened?"

"Somehow, Kaidan. I wouldn't have been if Tali had come in two seconds later." Shepard could feel his hands shaking slightly as the adrenaline surge ebbed, and the exhaustion began to move back into his brain. _No. I refuse. So much more left to go. Keep it together._ "I'd been in here for barely a minute when that geth attacked me. Damn thing could turn invisible."

Kaidan whistled. "Well, thank God for Tali then. Geth made another push through the side corridor almost as soon as we got over the stairs, Grenado yelled for help, otherwise we'd have been in here immediately. Sorry, Commander."

Shepard was about to ask if they'd dealt completely with the corridor geth, but the echoing bark of Garrus's Krysae sniper rifle told him they had not.

 _Focus_. The invisible geth was destroyed now. Move on with the mission. "Tali, when you came in here, you were excited about something, right? Did you find anything that will help us get aboard the geth ship and shut down its signal?"

The quarian girl stopped staring at the destroyed geth and looked at him. Her silver eyes brightened, and when she replied, her voice was dripping with smug satisfaction. "Even better. I found a way to destroy the whole ship, without even leaving this maintenance bay."

"What?!" Every human's voice rang out in unison. Wrex just cocked his massive head at her. "Must've missed the part where these scientists had been keeping a nuclear weapon in the corner, girl."

Tali ignored him, instead grabbing Shepard's arm and tugging him toward the doorway. He let her lead him back out into the maintenance bay, the other four trailing along behind curiously.

Tali stopped in front of the consoles he'd seen earlier, as he'd come over the partition. "Look!"

Shepard looked. Tech wasn't his specialty even at the best of times. The consoles were obviously a set of controls for something, but he couldn't tell for what or how to operate them. "What am I supposed to be seeing here?"

Tali huffed. "These are the controls for the bay doors! The ones that lead outside, the ones that the geth cruiser's stuck its landing claws in!"

"Okay, sooo…"

"They have two alternate working mechanisms, the primary electronic one and a secondary hydraulic one. The primary is offline, I've already checked, but the secondary isn't, and I recognize the model! I worked on an exchange program on the _Naz'Kenai_ when I was fourteen, it was a garbage scow and it smelled horrible-,"

" _Tali_ …."

"And it had this exact model of bay door! You hardly ever see them except on the Flotilla or in really remote places like this, because they all got recalled!" Tali was getting more and more excited with every word she spoke. Her silver eyes were glowing so brightly you could've read by their light, and she was almost- no, not almost, she was actually bouncing up and down. "If you operate the switches in the wrong order, no, the right order, the fluid lines powering the doors will overpressurize by a factor of fifteen!"

She said it with a dramatic flourish, but other than Kaidan, who sucked in his breath sharply, Shepard didn't think anyone understood why she was so excited about a faulty mechanical door. "Tali, please get to the point."

She huffed angrily again. "We can use this to cut off these two landing claws!"

 _Okay, that helps a bit, but still…_ "Those claws are huge, Tali. All you're going to do if you slam the bay doors into them is crumple the doors."

"Not if the system over-pressurizes as much as she says it does, Commander," Kaidan said quietly. "That would be more than enough to slice through a steel I-beam like a twig. Combine that with the strain the claw's going to be under from holding up that cruiser, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they tore into pieces. Might end up taking a good chunk of the maintenance bay with them, though."

"But it _would_ work!" Tali said eagerly. "A geth light cruiser of this size has eight of these claws, Shepard, and it needs all eight of them intact to properly distribute its weight! ALL of them! Cut these, and the others will tear free within minutes! The ship won't have time to reactivate its engines, it'll fall off and crash down on the planet's surface!"

Shepard listened with mounting disbelief _. It's too good to be true. Has to be_. "Tali, look, you may have seen something like this in the Migrant Fleet, but I just don't think-,"

Tali wasn't listening. She'd already turned back to the console, flipping a series of switches on, then off, then on, then reaching for another one on a different console entirely.

Shepard could've sworn he heard her giggle as she took hold of it.

The next thing he heard was an earsplitting shriek of tortured metal as the bay doors sheared into the geth cruiser's claws. They didn't manage to cut all the way through, the claws were too thick for that, but they got about two thirds of the way, and that was more than enough.

The strain of holding up the massive cruiser proved too much for the damaged claws. They warped, twisted, then snapped in a rain of flying shards; Shepard's shields dropped precipitously as they took a series of impacts.

With the claws in their way severed, the bay doors finished closing, or at least tried to. They'd crumpled significantly on contact with the geth metal, enough so that a gap still showed between them.

A loud rumbling filtered through the walls to them, coming from their right, above them, below them, as the cruiser's remaining six landing claws struggled to maintain their grip on the skyscraper, and failed. Louder and louder it grew, every second, until Shepard could barely hear himself think over the noise. The building was shaking, enough to knock fist-sized chunks of decaying duracrete loose from the walls and ceiling.

Then, with an almighty roar, the geth cruiser tore free from the skyscraper. The cold light of Feros's morning suddenly shone in through the gaps in the bay doors. He counted five seconds before a thunderous explosion shook the building like the fist of an angry god, coming from the surface of the planet far below. Despite the distance, the flash of the detonation was visible through the doors.

Just like that, it was done. The geth ship that had jammed their communications with each other and the wider galaxy, that had trapped the _Normandy_ in its docking bay, was now a smoking ruin on the surface of Feros.

And still, STILL, there had not been one injury or death. _Close doesn't count_.

His team's run of good luck had been unbelievable. As the building continued to tremble and a storm of gunfire welled up from the other side of the partition, where Garrus and Private Grenado were still dug in, Shepard knew it was about to end.

 **A/N: Well, I promised you guys gunfire and explosions, and I believe this chapter has delivered that. And there'll be even more in the next chapter!**

 **Speaking of the next chapter, I originally intended to finish up on Feros in this chapter, but it quickly became apparent to me as I wrote that that simply wasn't practical. This chapter is thirty pages in Microsoft Word, and yet it's maybe 30-40% of what I wanted to write. There's a whole lot of plotlines that need to be tied up before the Normandy leaves the planet, in addition to blowing up the Thorian. I know y'all have said you're okay with long chapters, but I simply don't want to subject you to reading a 90 page chapter, or myself to writing it. So I split the chapter. You'll see the next one as quickly as I can get it out—hopefully before September.**

 **I know you guys want Liara/Shepard stuff; the real romance is still a ways off, but I promise that you will be seeing their first, in-depth thoughts on each other, and the building blocks of attraction, beginning next chapter as well.**

 **I'm also updating the prologue (Nihlus's chapter) with this chapter; I intend to update each of my first five chapters as I release my next few new chapters. They're filled with blocky text and hard to read, and I suspect they're turning away readers.**

 **Genuinely looking forward to writing the next chapter; see y'all again soon! (Hopefully)**


	15. M Shepard V

_**0210 Hours AST, April 28**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 2183**_

 _ **South Face, ExoGeni HQ**_

 _ **Feros, Theseus System, Attican Beta Cluster**_

The building was shaking.

It wasn't exactly surprising. The massive skyscraper was more than fifty thousand years old, had endured the ravages of the elements for all that time without any maintenance, and now had just had a light cruiser smash into the ground at its base and explode. Small wonder it was vibrating hard enough to rattle Shepard's teeth inside his helmet.

Knowing the "why" of it didn't make it any more comforting, though. As he ran towards the stairs back over the partition, sprinting towards the storm of gunfire coming from Garrus and Private Grenado's position, he couldn't help but wonder if whatever he did now was absolutely pointless, and if they were all about to suddenly end up on the surface of the planet right next to the geth ship.

Shepard reached the top of the partition, his Mattock already raised into firing position. He was painfully aware of everyone crammed on the stairs behind him, painfully aware of what had happened to the geth that had been caught exposed in this position not an hour before, but even so he couldn't help but pause a moment at the sight before him.

Geth were pouring from the side tunnel, almost a dozen already in the maintenance bay and more emerging even as he watched. If they'd bothered to spread out, to try and flank or use cover or suppressing fire or any other sort of basic tactics, Garrus and Grenado would've already been dead.

But they weren't. The geth were just moving forward in a straight line, guns blazing, not bothering to seek cover. Even as he watched, Garrus popped up for a split second and drilled a geth square through its torso; its fellows didn't react at all as it fell.

Shepard ran down the stairs three at a time, opening fire on the geth as his feet thudded into the floor. Behind him, the weapons of the rest of the team joined in, felling three, four, five of the robots. The geths' response was sluggish, disjointed; a few turned towards the new arrivals, but again there was no cohesive response on the part of the AIs. Something niggled at the back of Shepard's mind, maybe something that Tali had said on Therum, or on the Normandy…

Having apparently forgotten what "cover", "suppressing fire", "teamwork", and other such advanced concepts were, the geth stood little chance of surviving their crossfire. The last of the ones to come out of the side entrance clattered to the ground within a few short minutes, joining the by now dozens of its fellows carpeting the maintenance bay.

Silence fell over the maintenance bay, more complete than any he'd heard since entering it. Even the building itself had stopped shrieking and shaking at some point during the fight, though the odd groan and clatter still echoed through the halls. _I think that's all of them in the area. Took long enough._

He walked over to where Garrus and Private Grenado were still huddled behind their cover, as if expecting another attack any second. "You two okay?" He almost wanted one of them to say "no", to dispel the feeling of a building debt that he'd had mounting ever since they'd left Zhu's Hope.

"We're fine." Garrus got cautiously to his feet, his Krysae sniper rifle still half pointed towards the doorway. Beside him, Caroline was a little slower; Shepard offered her a hand up, which she accepted gratefully. "They took us a bit off guard with that sudden rush, they'd been cautious before their ship was destroyed. How did you even manage to do that?"

"I didn't. Tali did." Shepard indicated the young quarian, standing attentively with the rest of the group. "Did something with the hangar bay doors to cut most of the way through the claws. I was about to order her to not try, I thought it was a waste of time. This was right after she saved me from getting my head blown off by an invisible geth, by the way."

Garrus spared Tali a mildly impressed glance, his mandibles raised, then looked back to Shepard. "An invisible geth?"

"Damndest thing. Was hiding out in the spare computer room back in the corner over there, like it was waiting for me specifically. Like it was hunting me. Sudden death with shotguns against an invisible opponent in a tiny room, fun times."

A pause.

"So what now?"

"That's a good question." _Because I don't have a good answer_. Shepard gestured for Kaidan to come over and join them. "The original plan was to board the geth ship, disable its jamming signal, call for reinforcements from the Alliance, then hole up somewhere in this building and wait to be relieved. I was operating under the reasonable assumption that we wouldn't be able to take out a cruiser on foot, but I hadn't taken luck and Tali into account."

"Isn't that a good thing, then, Commander?" Kaidan asked. "We don't need to call for heavy firepower anymore, just some help for the colonists."

"The cruiser's gone, Kaidan, and any geth it still had aboard, but that thing had already put a whole hell of a lot of bots onto the planet before it was destroyed. The skyway's covered with them, if you'll recall."

"Can't we just get the _Normandy_ to bomb them? Shouldn't be any problem now that the cruiser's gone."

"And take out the entire skyway along with them? That doesn't even touch any geth that still might be running around here in this building, and _that_ isn't even touching the Thorian, whatever it is, under the colony. There's still way too much on this planet for us to deal with by ourselves."

Shepard looked around at his team, then at the maintenance bay. "People, I know you're probably all already sick of this place, but I'm afraid we're going to be staying here for a while longer. This is a defensible spot, as Garrus and Grenado have already proved for us, and we have access to ExoGeni's mainframe through the spare computer room. Now that the jamming's gone, we'll call for Alliance reinforcements, hole up until they get here, then sweep Feros clean for good." He nodded at Kaidan. "Can you set up the link with the-,"

The static-filled squeal of his radio blared in his earpiece. At first, he thought Kaidan had simply anticipated his order. Then he realized that couldn't be right.

First, the call was incoming, not outgoing, the ridiculous coincidence that it'd come now, just as he was about to call the _Normandy_ notwithstanding.

Second, the call wasn't from the _Normandy_. It was from the guards outside the _Normandy_.

"Sir? Commander? We may have a problem here…"

He'd left Ashley Williams behind to guard the _Normandy_ while the rest of the team went geth hunting, and allowed her to pick two of her fellow Marines to stay with her; she'd chosen her friend Addison Chase and Marcus Greico, meaning all three of the Marine NCOs had stayed behind. Shepard suspected that was petty revenge for making her stay behind and miss the action.

Although if she was calling him…

"Williams? What's going on?"

"Sir, we've got colonists coming into the bay."

"That's why I left you there, Williams. Keep them from gaining access but don't hurt them."

"Sir, they're armed. I'm counting at least four ARs, two shotguns, an LMG," _wait, that can't be right_ , "way more than what they had when you were here. Sir, they're spreading out into a combat formation!" Shepard heard her order Chase and Greico into cover, and dread bloomed in his stomach.

He hurriedly tried to think what to do, what to tell Ashley. The Zhu's Hope colonists had obviously been hiding knowledge of the geth's purpose on Feros from them, as well as apparently the extent of their arsenal, but they still were _**not the enemy**_. The whole purpose of the mission was to help them, they were civilians, he couldn't okay live fire on them. But he couldn't just let them attack his Marines either, Williams, Chase, and Greico had no nonlethal weaponry, there wasn't any onboard, shit…

Too late. Over the comm link, he heard a weapon fire, then another, then another, till his ears were once more ringing with the sound of gunfire. He couldn't pick out most of the weapons over the link, but he definitely heard three Avengers.

"Dammit, no! Williams, check fire! Check fire!"

"Tell them that, sir, I-," Ashley's voice broke off and for one black moment Shepard thought she'd been hit, "shit, that's a creeper! CREEPERS!" The sound of her rifle redoubled in fury.

"Creepers?"

The team surrounding him could only hear his side of the conversation, but he knew that was bad enough. At the sound of the word "creeper," Garrus' eyes narrowed and his mandibles clenched, as if he'd just had a suspicion confirmed. The rest of the team gasped in shock, or hissed in anger, or in Wrex's case, rumbled a deep chuckle.

Shepard felt like the building was shaking again, tilting him sideways. Creepers. Plant monsters. The Thorian, the giant plant under Zhu's Hope. He should've made the connection the instant Baynham mentioned the thing; from the look on his face, Garrus already had. _Damn these visions, damn what they've done to me, damn them, damn them, damn…_

"Williams! Get aboard the Normandy immediately! All three of you! Tell Joker to take off immediately, and have Pressley call me once you're safely in the air! Now!"

As soon as he heard her confirm she'd received and understood his orders, Shepard cut the connection. He felt like the world was rearranging himself around him.

"I know all of you could only hear my half of that, so I'll fill you in on the rest. The colonists of Zhu's Hope, building off their warm and friendly greeting of us earlier," that got a few nervous chuckles from the Marines, "have dug out a bunch of heavy weapons that they shouldn't have, and mounted an attack on our ship. They have also apparently made friends with the creepers we met on Chasca, the source of which is apparently the Thorian plant under their colony. Zhu's Hope is now hostile territory until further notice, and the plan I outlined to you a few minutes ago no longer applies."

Kaidan frowned. "Commander, I'm not following you here. We now have even more hostiles to deal with, so we don't need reinforcements any longer?"

"Zhu's Hope is Feros' port, Alenko. As long as that's in hostile hands, reinforcements can't land."

"Do they have to land in that hangar, can't they just land-,"

"On the skyway? The one still crawling with geth armatures? In this building? The one that expressly doesn't have a landing facility, which was the whole reason Zhu's Hope was built?" Shepard shook his head. "We need that hangar back to clear this planet, and we, the eight of us, are going to have to take it back."

"Can't whatever reinforcements the Alliance sends us just land directly onto the settlement? That's what I was actually going to ask, Commander. Zhu's Hope is open air, and if worst came to it a naval weapon ought to be able to crack a breach in the side of the skyscraper."

"Yes, Kaidan, Alliance Marines train in opposed landing from orbit all the time. You've done it, I've done it, we've all done it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't those scenarios all end with the annihilation of the opposing force?" He shook his head again, then looked at each member of his team, his gaze lingering an extra moment on Wrex. "This is something that I don't think everyone here quite understands, but you are damn well going to before we leave this bay. These colonists are civilians. Protecting them is the whole reason we're here. I don't know why they were hiding the existence of the Thorian from us before, I don't know why they've suddenly turned hostile, and I don't know why they've made friends with murderous monsters, but I am absolutely going to find out."

"What I know, and what the rest of you are going to know from now on, is that the colonists are to be neutralized without killing them. If when all this is done, and any of you Marines have killed a colonist, and you can't convince me that there was absolutely no other way to save your life or the life of one of your squadmates, I will personally see you court-martialed and thrown out of the service. Garrus, Tali, Wrex, if it's one of you, I'll have to settle for throwing you off my ship. Do You Understand?"

He waited until the chorus of "Yes, sir" and "Aye aye" had faded. Kaidan looked unhappy. "Commander, I admire the intent here, I want to save lives too, but how? We don't have nonlethal weaponry. No rubber bullets or tear gas or anything like that."

"We'll have to think of something, Alenko. Last resort, we aim exclusively for the arms and lower legs. Avoid the thigh, hit the femoral artery and they're as dead as if you shot them in the head." He held up a hand before Kaidan could protest further. "I know it's not reliable, I know if your arm gets jostled or the wind takes your shot you've killed them by accident. I said last resort. We're going to find something better, somehow, and that starts with figuring out exactly what is going on here. No more mysteries on this planet."

He looked around at the rest of the team again. "I was planning to leave the computers we found here, and whatever ExoGeni has been doing here, alone until the planet was clean and we could get Alliance Intel in here to crack every single file. Well, now it seems to me that we can't clean the planet without understanding what exactly this Thorian is and how it's gotten human colonists to fight for it alongside its monsters. Tali, Kaidan, Garrus, I'm going to need you to hack into ExoGeni's research databases through those computers and pull every bit of information you can on the Thorian, what exactly it is, what its relationship is with the colonists, and what they thought might kill it, if that's in there. If you see anything on Saren or on Chasca, flag it and copy it for later, it's not important right now. The rest of us will guard you however long it takes. Unless, that is," he raised his voice, "you'd care to share whatever it is you're still holding back, Miss Baynham?"

Lizbeth Baynham had followed them back over the partition when the gunfire had stopped, and had taken a seat on the lowest of the stairs, knees drawn up to her chin and looking forlorn. She scrambled to her feet as Shepard marched over to her.

"Commander? I've already told you-,"

"A load of crap. You're not the first person to try and hide information from me, Miss Baynham, and rest assured the previous ones were a lot better at it than you." Standing on the lowest of the steps over the partition was barely enough to bring her face level with his. Shepard leaned in close, staring her hard in the eyes, making her shrink back. He hadn't originally intended to be so rough on her, in light of everything she'd been through, but now he didn't have any time to play good cop. "I know you were part of the research team here. I know you were studying the Thorian, and I know that you know everything there is to know about it. You're going to tell me. NOW."

"But I-,"

"Miss Baynham, the lives of every one of those colonists are in extreme danger. My team's life. My life. Your life. That's the order of priority on them right now, by the way. If you want to get out of here alive, you're going to start talking."

She visibly wilted. He waited for a moment, and a moment more, and then…

"I didn't want this to happen. Any of it." He could barely make out her words. She was staring at her feet, not meeting his eyes, and mumbling. "I told you the Thorian was huge. I didn't say how huge. It's really a network of tendrils that cover the surface of the entire planet. What we called "the Thorian" directly beneath Zhu's Hope is really just the primary nerve nexus."

An organism spanning the entire planet. Shepard's brain tried to grasp the enormity of such a thing, and failed. _How the hell are we going to kill this thing, then? Is taking out this "primary nerve nexus" going to be enough?_ "Keep talking."

"We were able to figure out its rate of growth by taking samples from tendrils in remote locations and growing them in artificial conditions, and from that we were able to get a rough estimate of its age. It's the oldest lifeform in the galaxy that we know of. Easily. It's a hundred thousand years old or more."

He had told her to tell him everything, but she was taking too long to get to the information he really needed. "Why are the colonists defending it?"

Baynham mumbled something so indistinct he couldn't make out any individual words.

"Speak up. Louder."

"The Thorian releases spores. The distance from the nearest plant material and the air currents keep this skyscraper clean, so we didn't realize at first. Any spores a normal sapient being inhales migrate straight to the brain. Breathe enough of them in, and they form… growths."

He heard Tali and several of his Marines make horrified noises, felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. "And?"

"Most of the time nothing happens. But when the Thorian wants something done, or needs to be defended, it uses those growths to force the person to carry out its will. Like an organic control chip."

Most of the time, Shepard would've spared more thought for the notion that a giant alien plant could have a will and want things. Not now. "ExoGeni knew about this. You let these colonists become slaves to a giant plant monster so you could study them?!"

Lizbeth Baynham finally looked up from her shoes. Her dirty, red-rimmed eyes were brimming with tears. "I tried to stop it, I swear! As soon as we figured out what was going on, I put in an official protest! I called for the whole thing to stop and the colonists to be moved into therapy! Management shut me down and refused, I was going to send a message to Colonial Affairs but there wasn't time before the geth came!" She fumbled in her ragged lab suit and withdrew a laminated ID card. "The record of me protesting is in the official files if you don't believe me. I have access to most of the research data, but I wasn't in management, so some things were closed off. I think they were working on a way to free the colonists in one of the labs, I don't know." She was openly crying now, tears carving streaks down the grime on her face.

Shepard was disgusted with her and himself both. He took the offered card and handed it to Kaidan. "Get into those systems. Anything her access doesn't get you, hack. Priorities are what I told you earlier."

It took perhaps twenty minutes for Tali, Garrus, and Kaidan to be satisfied they'd gotten everything immediately relevant, and another ten for them to grab stuff that might be useful later. Shepard spent that time watching the entrances with the rest of the squad in case more geth showed up, restlessly waiting for his techies to finish up and trying to keep his mind focused to ward off the fatigue and visions.

Soon after they'd begun, Pressley called, as per orders. Shepard told him to take the Normandy into orbit, out of the choked atmosphere; once again, there was going to be no way for the ship to help them. He'd call them back down when the landing bay was retaken. If he didn't make the call within the next twelve hours, the _Normandy_ was to go straight to New Siena and come back with all available ships. He got Pressley's reluctant confirmation, then went back to waiting.

Finally, Kaidan called him from the computer room. "Commander? We think we've got everything we'll need."

Most of it confirmed what Baynham had said. The Thorian was a plantoid lifeform of nearly incomprehensible age and size. It was capable of emitting spores that allowed it to force organics to do its will ("not mind control, though, not precisely", the research logs stated). It was clearly sapient, though in a different way than the ExoGeni researchers had ever encountered before—"alien and incomprehensible in a way the Citadel races simply aren't", one log put it. The database even contained transcripts of Saren's conversation with the local management, though Tali and Garrus had had to hack their way into them; sadly, the turian hadn't told the bureaucrats a word about his long term plans, but the transcripts did confirm that the purpose of his visit had been to… converse… with the Thorian. _Yeah, I'd say its sapient if you can have a conversation with it._

Of far greater immediate interest to Shepard was that Baynham had also been correct about ExoGeni developing nonlethal countermeasures to the puppeted colonists. Unfortunately, the chemical mixture that had been prepared in one of the labs elsewhere in the skyscraper did not remove the spore growths from the brain; instead, if Shepard was reading the file Tali had pulled up on one of her four monitors correctly, it "temporarily decays the ability of the spore receivers to process and disseminate signals from the Thorian primary nerve ephapse, in turn filling the limbic system of the affected individual with 'static' equivalent, causing the individual to lose control of their motor system and to temporarily shut down higher cognition until the effect wears off and the subspace connection is reestablished."

"It makes them have seizures and knocks them unconscious," Garrus clarified.

"As long as those seizures are of the nonlethal kind, that's more than good enough," Shepard said. A few hours unconsciousness would be plenty of time to secure the bay, bring the Normandy back in, and restrain the colonists until the Thorian itself had been dealt with.

"Hopefully the ExoGeni people came up with some sort of delivery system as well and not just the gas," Kaidan said. "If not, there's a possibility I might be able to modify some of our grenades to disperse it. Assuming we can find this particular lab and assuming the stuff is still there, of course."

"Time we found out." Shepard checked to make sure all of the files had been copied to his omnitool, then looked at the other three. "You guys got all this stuff too?" They nodded. "Good. Garrus, Kaidan, get the team ready to move. Make sure Baynham knows that we're going to need her to direct us to this lab, and quickly. Tali, stay here a moment, I need to talk to you."

Garrus and Kaidan moved to carry out his orders, casting curious looks over their shoulders at Tali as they went. The quarian girl stood in front of the console she'd been using, three-fingered hands interlaced in front of her, bobbing on the balls of her feet slightly. Shepard wasn't familiar with quarian body language, but she looked nervous to him. _Does she think I'm about to chew her out?_

He held up four fingers. "Four things. First, were you able to find out if Baynham was telling the truth about trying to stop this experiment on the colonists?"

"Um, yes. I mean, yes we were able to find out. Also, yes, she was telling the truth, she did protest about it, it says so right here, no, wait, maybe it's this one..."

"Good. Transfer the dated protest and ExoGeni's response to my omnitool, I'll look at it myself." He waited until his 'tool had chimed in receipt of the new files, then continued. "Now, the real reasons I pulled you aside. I want to make it very clear to you that—Tali, stop fidgeting. You're not in trouble. In fact quite the opposite. I want to make it very clear to you that I saw everything you did over the past few hours."

"What do you-,"

"I mean that you hacked a geth Prime and used it to nearly singlehandedly wreck an ambush that might've gotten several of us killed when we breached this maintenance bay. You then, again singlehandedly, repelled a geth counterattack across that partition via hacking and your shotgun. You then proceeded to save my life right here in this side room from an invisible robot assassin, then you improvised a way to not only shut down the geth jamming signal and complete our mission here in this building, but destroy an entire light cruiser in the process. Also, you casually hacked an entire corporate database to get me crucial information just now."

"Tali, if an Alliance sailor or Marine did what you've just done in the course of a single engagement, they'd be nearly guaranteed a prestigious medal, and quite likely a promotion. You're not Alliance personnel, so you can't be promoted, but I am making a solemn promise to you right now: assuming I don't catch a bullet between the eyes or get my head lopped off by a creeper before we finish up here on Feros, I am going to find out what decoration the Alliance awards to aliens seconded to its command, and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure you get it."

Tali's glowing silver eyes widened behind the facemask of her suit and she made a squeaking noise oddly reminiscent of a mouse being stepped on. Shepard plowed on.

"Unfortunately, that's not much of practical use to you. You're on Pilgrimage, right? You need to prove your worth as an adult by bringing something of value back to the Migrant Fleet, am I remembering that right?"

"Y-yes."

"Okay. Have you seen anything here you could use? Does the Fleet need any geth Prime miniguns? Any ExoGeni seizure gas formulas?"

"No. Well, I mean, maybe Special Projects could actually use the formula for the gas-,"

"Then feel free to copy it."

"- but what I really need is either something that helps sustain the fleet and the quarian people as a whole, so something like a new ship or a vegetable strain that was more efficient in its yields, or something that would help us gain insight into the geth and how they're evolving. Anything new they've made for themselves. I was hoping to maybe poke around on their cruiser's databanks, but…." She gestured lamely in the direction of the crumpled bay doors.

"But you went and blew it up." Shepard walked over to the remains of the geth "Hunter" that she'd saved him from perhaps an hour and a half before. _She'd definitely have been able to use its cloaking device; pity we wrecked that too_. The thing's tri-barreled shotgun still lay close to its smashed form, though. He flipped it up into the air with his boot and caught it. "What about this? I don't recall seeing any geth with shotguns before. Is this something they've come up with themselves?"

"I don't know. I've never seen a weapon like it, but maybe someone else has. I can't remember if they used anything like this when they rebelled against us, a small arm like this."

"Take it then." Shepard offered it to her; she accepted it gingerly, as if it might explode or evaporate in her hands any second. "Either the Fleet will accept it, in which case you've gotten a start on your Pilgrimage offering, or they won't, in which case you've just upgraded from the aftermarket thing you're currently carrying."

"It doesn't have a trigger."

"Oh." She was right, he saw; where a gun meant for organics would have a trigger, the geth shotgun had a small data-port instead. "In that case, it'll be a really nice paperweight. My mother has one like that, broken gun my dad gave her not long before Shanxi."

"Fourth thing. Tali, when we left the Citadel, Anderson and Udina had to practically order me to take you on. I didn't want you with us, because I thought you weren't up to it. We both remember it. Even after how you handled yourself on Therum, I was reserving judgement."

"No more. Tali, going forward, understand this: as far as I'm concerned, you belong here."

 _ **0537 Hours AST, April 28**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 2183**_

 _ **Southeastern Terminus of Prothean Skyway, Approaching Zhu's Hope Building**_

 _ **Feros, Theseus System, Attican Beta Cluster**_

The ladder that would take them off the skyway was barely ten feet ahead; despite himself, Shepard was surprised that they'd reached it this fast, just under two hours. Going the other way had taken almost three times as long.

They'd left the maintenance bay in ExoGeni HQ as soon as he and Tali had rejoined the others; her new, possibly useless geth shotgun riding in the mag-slot on the small of her back while her current weapon stayed in her hands. Lizbeth Baynham had led them to the science lab they'd identified as the one containing "seizure gas" from ExoGeni's records; they'd been only mildly inconvenienced by the geth that attacked them singly and in small groups along the way.

Those geth, as well as the few remaining on the skyway small enough to fit down on the pedestrian walkway, had come at them just like the ones from the side corridor immediately after the cruiser's destruction. Uncoordinated, seemingly incapable of shooting easy targets, ignoring basic principles of combat; in a word, stupidly. According to Tali, that was exactly what was going on.

"Most of the geth on the planet would've been stored on the cruiser's processors," she'd said. "Geth grow smarter and more capable the more of them are in an area communicating with each other. Destroying that ship sort of gave a lobotomy to all the ones still here."

Shepard dearly hoped the upcoming battle with the colonists, creepers, and their Thorian master would be so easy, though he knew that was probably futile.

He looked again at the gas grenades on his belt, quickly checking to see that they were secure. He was carrying two, as was Kaidan; the rest of the team had one each.

There had been good news and bad news when they'd reached the lab responsible for synthesizing the anti-Thorian chemicals. The good news had been that the geth had not trashed the place, other than shooting a couple scientists whose rotting bodies were still present.

The bad news had been, judging from the notebooks and research logs, that ExoGeni had only just begun making the stuff when the geth showed up. There was no custom-designed delivery system yet made, and though after a bit of hurried tinkering Kaidan had been able to compress some of the chemicals into modified cores similar to the standard ones used in Alliance grenades, there'd only been enough for ten grenades. Whether that would be enough depended on how tightly the colonists clustered together, and whether the gas actually did what it promised.

Shepard was confident in Kaidan's work, but not nearly as much in that of the ExoGeni scientists. Still, this was their only real shot to save as many of the colonists as possible; he had to try it.

He moved forward, slotted his Mattock onto the hardpoint on his back, and began to climb up the ladder. He could hear Tali coming up behind him, then Garrus.

He emerged onto the surface of the skyway itself, and stood back to let the others clamber out, one at a time. If he zoomed in his visor, he could see a few large geth moving aimlessly around on the road in the distance, but they made no move to attack.

When the entire squad had come up, he moved towards the large garage door. When they'd come through here heading towards ExoGeni seemingly an eternity ago, they'd left it open behind them after clearing it of geth; the mere fact that it was now sealed told him there would be hostiles in there. _I'm getting very tired of deliberately walking into traps_.

Still, at least they would be able to get the door open without any problems. He stopped at the wall, next to the small keypad that controlled the door (Fai Dan had given him the combo before they left Zhu's Hope), and looked over his team. Lizbeth Baynham wasn't among them; he'd left her at a small rest stop three quarters of the way here, with a ration pack and his assurance that they'd return for her once they'd retaken Zhu's Hope.

"I'm sure you all remember the layout of this garage. We're looking at a similar scenario here to when we went into the maintenance bay over in ExoGeni. We have to force our way into a prepared position, the defenders of which know we're coming and are likely behind cover."

"There's a few differences, though. Good news is that the colonists aren't going to be nearly as heavily armed as the geth were. Ashley said over the comm that they had a few things they were hiding from us, but I can still almost guarantee they don't have any miniguns or flamethrowers. There's also not as many colonists total as there were geth in that maintenance bay, and I'm betting they have fallback positions in the corridors of the skyscraper leading to Zhu's Hope, so there should only be a few here. Bad news, the colonists are going to have their numbers bolstered by Thorian creepers. That means we won't be able to seek cover like we normally would, not that there is any on the floor of this garage. I'm thinking the best course of action here is going to be for Wrex and I to simply rush them. The rest of you can pitch a couple grenades at them if you want, but no more than 2, we need to conserve some for the rest of the way to the settlement."

He pointed at Tali. "Tali, you're the only one here who hasn't faced creepers before. Any that we see, I want you to stay as far away from as possible. Let us deal with them. It has nothing to do with not trusting you," he said, cutting her off as she started to speak, "their acid bypasses shields. The rest of us can take off any sections of our armor that get splashed with the stuff; you can't. Those things get near you, you'll end up worse than Crosby and we can't afford that right now. Give me your word you'll stay in the back." She reluctantly gave it.

"Alright then. Let's get this over with." He turned back to the keypad, and tapped in the numbers Fai Dan had given him. _Five, one, four, nine_.

The ancient garage door groaned, and slowly began to rattle upwards. As soon as there was enough clearance, Shepard ducked in under it.

Under the control of an impossibly ancient and alien lifeform the colonists may have been, but they still lacked the reflexes of the robotic geth. Shepard was able to stand up and get his bearings before the first shots began singing past his ears.

The garage was a fairly simple, two-part area, consisting of the lower roadway, separated from the skyway by the garage door, and the upper walkway, connecting to the rest of the building. A single sloping ramp, running the width of the entire garage, connected the two sections.

Shepard saw seven colonists, firing from behind crates they'd somehow gotten in here. Four clustered close to the door that lead to the rest of the building, three spaced out and isolated further away. No creepers, yet.

Kaidan ducked under the door after him, followed by Wrex, crawling through on his hands and knees (the door still hadn't raised high enough to accommodate him even bent over). The krogan got to his feet, looked around, roared, and charged.

"Kaidan! Put a gas grenade on the ones by the door!" Shepard barked. He didn't pause to watch Kaidan pull out the grenade, but sprinted after Wrex.

It was slightly further than the geth had been when he'd entered the maintenance bay, over completely open ground and up a slope. There were far fewer and lighter weapons pointing at him now than then, but their accuracy was picking up every second; his shields were dropping alarmingly fast.

He might have just biotically _charged_ across the distance as he'd done against the geth, _would_ have, but he wasn't practiced enough with the move to finely control its impact strength among other things. _Can't take risk of slamming a colonist into the wall and breaking his neck_. He gritted his teeth, watched his shield indicator shrink in his HUD, and kept running.

There were no signs of creepers, yet. His shields hit thirty percent, the fire from at least two assault rifles- _Ashley wasn't kidding, they definitely have better guns than they let on_ \- hammering into them.

The distance between him and the isolated three colonists shrank, but up the slope in his armor it was slower going than usual. Fifteen percent.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a grenade sail towards the four colonists clustered by the door into the interior of the skyscraper, a hell of a throw by Kaidan. It detonated with a bang and a hiss, there were a few shrieks, and then the fire from that area stopped abruptly.

The three in front of him kept shooting though. Five percent. An alarm in his helmet had started shrieking at him when it hit ten.

Ahead of him, Wrex reached the colonists, bulling through the crate two of them were hiding behind. The krogan wrenched the gun out of one's hand, backhanded him across the face and dropped him instantly. He then turned on the other, grabbed her shoulder, and bent her over to meet Wrex's knee rising into her sternum. The colonist fell to the floor wheezing.

The last one backpedaled away from his crate as Shepard closed the last few yards, his shaking left hand grabbing something off his belt.

The colonist threw the frag grenade- _how the hell did he get one of those?!_ \- so hard it depleted the last shred of Shepard's shields when it smacked him in the shoulder.

As if in slow motion, the live grenade fell to the ground at his feet. Somehow, without breaking stride, he kicked it behind him as he crossed the last bit of distance, it detonated, the explosion buffeted his left side but he felt no pain. He hurdled the colonist's crate, a shot from the man's pistol skating off his shoulder pauldron, seized the man, and knocked him cold.

There was a few second's pause, as the rest of the team ran up the slope to join Shepard and Wrex… then the guttural groans that Shepard remembered from Chasca echoed from the doorway leading into the skyscraper. He wasted no time directing the squad into position covering the entranceway.

It was eerily similar to the first time he'd encountered the things, just with greater numbers on both sides: he had eight individuals with him where he'd had six then, and where there'd been fourteen creepers swarming out of the garage in that pioneer barracks, he estimated at least double that number came forth from the interior of the skyscraper now, running in their odd, hunched over manner, faster and more urgently than they had before.

They still died the same, though.

There were more creepers, proportionally, than there were of his people compared to Chasca, but the squad was experienced at dealing with the things by now. None laid a talon on one of his Marines, or puked acid on anybody. One made it almost to vomit range, within four feet of Dubyansky, before three rifles wasted it.

It would likely get much harder once they got into the cramped corridors leading to Zhu's Hope, he knew, but miraculously their luck _still_ seemed to be holding. The garage taken for the second time, and still no deaths or injuries.

"Okay, people, let's put restraints on these civilians so they don't come back after us when they wake up. Start with this one first," he gestured at the feebly groaning woman that from the looks of it had several broken ribs courtesy of Urdnot Wrex, "we'll come back and collect them all after Zhu's Hope is pacified. Once that's done, form back up and we'll start working our way through the tunnels."

Most of the squad moved to obey. Private Dubyansky did not, staring at him.

"Was there something about that you did not understand, Private? We need to get a move on."

"Commander, sir, your hand…"

"What about-,"

His left hand, the one he'd used to gesture towards the unconscious colonists, only had three fingers.

Shepard raised the hand in front of his face in disbelief. _Shrapnel from that grenade, it had to have been, my shields were down_. The torn bodysuit had automatically shrunken over the stumps, sealing them to prevent major blood loss, though the nearest automated medigel injector in the suit was located in the forearm and hadn't triggered. _I didn't feel a damn thing. Adrenaline. REALLY need to keep moving now, keep in the action, before it wears off and I get distracted by pain_.

The rest of the squad had all stopped what they were doing to stare at him. "Commander, are you alright?"

"I'll live, Kaidan, restrain the civilians." He looked back over the area he'd crossed while charging the colonists. Almost a decade in NavSpecWar, honestly shocking this hadn't happened before. Spotting one of his severed fingers lying on the ground, he walked over, picked it up, and stuffed it in an ammo pouch—with luck, Dr. Chakwas would be able to reattach it. He couldn't see any sign of the other.

"Why bother, Shepard? Let me guess, you can't even-,"

"No, Wrex, I can't regenerate. If the rest of you are done," he hefted his gun, gripping tighter with his remaining fingers to compensate for the missing ones and ignoring the krogan's grumbling about typical alien weakness, "form up and let's move."

On the way towards ExoGeni's HQ, it had taken them about forty five minutes to move from Zhu's Hope to the skyway; half an hour cautiously moving through the tunnels and corridors of the skyscraper, and a brisk but short firefight with the geth force that had dug itself in in the garage.

It took Shepard and his team three hours to make it halfway coming back.

The colonists' resistance was ferocious. Any questions that may have lingered in the team's minds about how these civilians had repelled the geth for over a week were dispelled after the first fifteen minutes in the cramped quarters of the interior of the skyscraper, though it quickly became apparent that "civilian" wasn't really the right term for them, whatever their legal status.

They fought like trained soldiers, or at the very least militia who were intimately familiar with their home ground. They contested every single point in the building where the layout gave them the natural upper hand. At intersections of two passages, multiple colonists would be located down different corridors, ready to catch Shepard or Wrex in a crossfire the moment they stepped into the intersection. Twice, colonists made use of alternate routes through the building to suddenly appear behind the squad in a hail of bullets, only to quickly disappear again before a gas grenade could be pitched their way—the first time they did this, Kaidan took a round through his right bicep. They never clustered together in groups larger than two, making the gas grenades impractical. The fact that their weaponry, while definitely below Alliance standards, was still far better than anything they should have had access to did not help at all.

All this, while frustrating in the extreme, still would only have been an annoyance if it was only the colonists that the squad had to contend with. If nothing else, Shepard and Wrex could simply have reinforced their shields with biotics and beaten the colonists into submission again and again. What pushed it from nuisance into the realm of genuinely lethal threat were the creepers.

The grey monstrosities boiled from the darkness in the interior of the skyscraper in numbers enough that Shepard soon gave up even trying to hazard a guess at how many there were; he stopped counting after the second wave of sixty. It would've been bad enough in the open, where the full weight of every weapon could be brought to bear on the things. In the cramped corridors of the interior, where only the three or four people at the head of the group could shoot without risking friendly fire, it was nightmarish. When a large swarm of creepers appeared, Shepard was forced to give the order to fall back all the way to the garage, just to find a spot with enough open space to deal with the things.

That only happened twice, thankfully, but there were always creepers trickling in towards the team as they inched through the building, three or four at a time. Flushing Garrus out of cover as he attempted to work his way close enough to a pair of colonists to club them unconscious. Moving forward in a group to give some colonists space to retreat, or distract from an attack; both incidences of colonists circling behind the squad being immediately preceded by an attack on the front of the column by a dozen creepers.

It was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened.

They were nearing the second of two stairwells between the garage and Zhu's Hope. Despite the rough going to this point, and the fact that he was having increasing difficulty maintaining a grip on his shotgun (its stock was slick with blood that had leaked through the gaps in his bodysuit over the stumps of his missing fingers), Shepard was cautiously optimistic. By his count, despite the fight the colonists had been putting up, they'd already subdued about two-thirds of the colonists.

 _I think that's the third intersection in a row we've reached without any resistance_. Shepard stepped into the middle of said intersection, cast a cursory glance left and right to check for hostiles, then continued straight ahead toward the stairwell that would put them within forty yards of the main courtyard of Zhu's Hope, Wrex lumbering at his side. _I'm betting the colonists have decided to pull back and consolidate there, with their creeper buddies. Or rather, the Thorian's decided for them_. If ExoGeni's files hadn't already told him that the civilians were under the influence of a superintelligent hive mind, their uncanny coordination surely would have.

He could see the entrance to the stairwell up ahead. Behind him the middle of the squad was just beginning to pass through the intersection.

The two creepers didn't make any sort of noise or groan when they ran into the team's midst, bursting from the shadows down the right-hand corridor. The first Shepard knew of what was going on was when he heard Private Grenado yelling in panic.

When arranging the dispositions of the squad, he'd taken care to put his best fighters on either end of the column, the places most likely to encounter enemy contact: himself and Wrex at the front, Garrus and Kaidan at the back. The most vulnerable teammates went into the middle, where in theory they'd be the best protected.

In theory.

As they closed the last few yards, the creepers diverged, one towards Tali and Private Grenado (who'd taken some shrapnel in her left arm back in ExoGeni HQ), and the other towards Private Harvey Gladstone.

Tali and Grenado both backpedaled as the creeper lunged at them, Tali stumbling backwards into Dubyansky coming up behind them and sending them both sprawling to the decaying duracrete floor. Grenado panickingly dodged the first swipe from the creature, and the second. The third skated off her forearm bracer at an angle and hit the corridor wall, throwing the creeper off balance for a second; the Marine wildly sprayed half her assault rifle's clip at the thing one handed from the hip. Normally nothing fired like that would hit, but at point blank range at least four bullets did. Tali and Dubyansky, scrambling to their feet, finished it off.

As the other creeper came at him, Gladstone tried to dodge in a similar manner to the two women. Unlike Tali, whose only form of defense being her shields rendered her uniquely vulnerable to creeper, and Grenado, who was nursing a lame arm, Gladstone had been placed in the middle of the squad due to a sprained ankle he'd sustained while trying to climb over some rubble on the way to ExoGeni HQ. Now, as he tried to step backwards, pivoting on that ankle to bring his weapon to bear, it gave out from under him.

He twisted and fell…

And met the sickly white talons of the creeper, swiping upwards to meet him.

The blow sheared through the bodysuit covering his neck, then nearly everything beneath it: trachea, esophagus, carotid artery, jugular vein. The white claws missed the spine but got all the meat, exploding up and out in a spray of red.

Private Gladstone was dead before he hit the ground. It had been eight seconds since the creepers ran from the shadows.

Shepard saw his Marine's body hit the ground, saw the creeper turn towards him as he dashed back towards it, in slow motion. For an instant, he was back on Elysium, on Akuze, on the half-dozen nameless moons and rocks where troops in his charge had died. _Not again, dammit, no_.

Two shotgun blasts to the midsection blew the creeper in half.

Shepard heard a faint ringing in his ears as he stood over Gladstone's body. A welter of emotions bubbled up inside him, anger, frustration, resignation. He shoved the latter two back down and channeled the anger into an icy resolve.

"Get back in formation and maintain your intervals," he said flatly, as the rest of the squad began to bunch up around the corpse. "We're still in a hot zone."

"Sir, we can't just leave him." Grenado couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the body of her fellow Marine. _Just her, Dubyansky, and Alenko left in the squad now. As many aliens with me as humans._

"We'll send a few people back for him once we've taken the colony, along with the colonists we've been subduing along the way. We're almost done with this part of the mission. We haven't seen any colonists in a long enough time now that I think they've all pulled back to Zhu's Hope."

He proved to be right on both counts. The colonists had indeed pulled back to Zhu's Hope. And despite the loss of Gladstone, the team was almost done.

Perhaps the Thorian realized that its hit and run tactics throughout the skyscraper had only slowed the Marines instead of stopping them, and came to the mistaken conclusion that a more concentrated application of firepower would do the trick. Perhaps it did not realize the dispersal radius of the gas grenades, or had somehow failed to realize exactly what had neutralized its pawns on five previous occasions in the garage and labyrinthine corridors (though the ones in the skyscraper interior had netted but one or two colonists apiece). Perhaps it became desperate and forgot. Perhaps it had some other motive only comprehensible to a giant ancient sentient plant.

Whatever its reason, the Thorian's decision to deploy six puppet colonists and a dozen creepers into a fifteen foot wide space around the entrance to the Zhu's Hope courtyard proved to be monumentally stupid. A single gas grenade proved enough to deal with all of them, knocking the colonists unconscious and killing the creepers (though the team shot every downed one to make sure).

The last four colonists were quickly hunted down in the maze of prefab buildings crammed into the courtyard, the squad dispersing into pairs to more efficiently complete the task. None were killed… but the squad, angered by Gladstone's death, were not gentle.

David al-Talaqani, who had greeted them in the hangar when they first arrived on this godforsaken planet, attempted to jump onto Shepard's back with a knife from the roof of one of the prefabs as Shepard passed under it, somehow failing to notice the eight and a half foot tall krogan walking beside Shepard. al-Talaqani paid for this when Wrex grabbed him out of midair and fractured his skull with a headbutt.

A grey haired man in his mid sixties greeted Tali with a burst of assault rifle fire when she checked one of the rooms in a prefab. He was rewarded with the sight of his bullets harmlessly dissipating from her shields, and a thundering two-toed kick to the groin.

Arcelia Martinez, the ExoGeni security officer who'd been so hostile to them, took the butt of Private Dubyansky's assault rifle straight to the face, and collapsed with a broken jaw.

The very last of the colonists to be neutralized was their erstwhile leader, Fai Dan. The diminutive Asian man waited in a shadowy alcove in the lee of a prefab as Kaidan and Garrus moved past him, then raised a military-grade pistol to fire at them from behind. Unfortunately for him, Garrus chose that moment to check their six, saw the threat, and put a single assault rifle bullet through his pistol hand. The turian then marched up to the agonized civilian and cold cocked him.

And just like that, it was done. Step one, at least.

As the squad slowly reassembled on the far side of the courtyard, near the entrance to the stairwell leading to the docking bay, Shepard activated his comms. "Shepard to _Normandy_ , come in Normandy."

"Heeeyy, Commander, haven't heard from you in a-,"

"Shut up, Joker. Get Pressley on the line, now, please."

There was some indecipherable grumbling from the pilot, but a moment later, the voice of Shepard's XO came over his comms. "Good to hear from you, Commander. In just over half the time you gave yourself, too. I take it this means we can bring the ship back into the docking bay?"

"Correct. All civilians have been incapacitated and accounted for, and Zhu's Hope is under our control."

"Excellent, Commander. We'll begin our descent at once, and should be back inside the bay in less than ten minutes."

"Pressley, listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. When you dock, I want you to send every crewman that isn't on active duty in communications, engineering, or medical up here, as well as Corporals Chase and Greico. Empty the armory for them; there won't be enough weapons there for everyone but we'll make up the difference with what we're carrying here and stuff from the colonists. Tell Dr. Chakwas and Gunnery Sergeant Williams to get ready to treat casualties. And," he paused, "have the crewmen fetch a body bag out of storage and bring it with them."

"Who-,"

"Gladstone. Did you get all that?"

"Aye, Commander. I'll relay the orders to the crew. We're on our way." The comm clicked off on Pressley's end.

Shepard looked around at his assembled team. He didn't bother questioning if they'd heard his end of the conversation this time. "We've got about ten minutes until the Normandy pulls into the docking bay, probably another five or so before the Navy crew gets here. I want all of you to spend that time beginning to gather colonists and putting them over there." He indicated the area where the colonists had stored destroyed geth platforms with a jerk of his head.

"Once they do get here, Lieutenant Alenko, Private Grenado, and myself will be returning to the ship for medical treatment. I'll be leaving Officer Vakarian in charge here. Everyone got that?" There were some confused looks, not least from Garrus himself, but the squad murmured its assent. "Okay, go round them up. Garrus, come with me."

As the rest of the squad began to filter back towards the spots where they'd left unconscious colonists, Shepard set off at a perpendicular angle, towards the western edge of the courtyard, with a confused turian hurrying after him.

"Commander, I appreciate your confidence in me, but are you sure you want me in control of your Alliance personnel?"

"Lieutenant Alenko and I have both sustained combat injuries that need treatment. In my case, urgent treatment, every minute that passes decreases the chance that Dr. Chakwas is going to be able to reattach my finger. I also need to return to the _Normandy_ so I can call the Alliance for reinforcements. After Alenko and I, the next most senior human on the ship with ground experience is Gunnery Sergeant Williams, but she is going to be busy assisting with the treatment of both us and the various injuries we inflicted on the colonists. After her, I have two corporals, neither of whom is qualified to be directing almost forty people to do what needs to be done up here. You told me you have experience in the Blackwatch. My people will obey you if I tell them to. You're up, Garrus."

"I understand, Commander." Garrus's mandibles flickered indecipherably as he paced besides Shepard. "What needs to be done?"

"Two things. First one's obvious. Finish rounding up the colonists, make sure they're all restrained, put them under guard over in the area I indicated. We're going to have to simultaneously care for them and make sure they can't break loose and threaten us for however long it takes until our reinforcements get here, which'll unfortunately be a few days at minimum. We'll rotate the crew in shifts, same for the guy in charge; Kaidan will take over for you after about six hours or so, and I'll take over for him."

"And the second thing?"

Shepard didn't answer immediately; they'd arrived at the western edge of the courtyard.

This should have been the most open space in the courtyard, a clear space for meetings, exercise, and minor equipment for raincatching, communications, and other things that required a bit of room to function.

Instead, a small tramp freighter, shorter from nose to tail than the _Normandy_ but significantly wider, had been somehow jammed into the area, flush against the wall. The name _Borealis_ was stenciled along the side of her hull.

"Did you notice this thing when we first came through on our way out to ExoGeni?" Shepard asked Garrus.

"Yes, Commander. It seemed bizarre, but at the time I was more focused on the problems of the geth and how the colonists had survived."

"Same here, mostly, but this is just so out of place that I knew as soon as I saw it there was some reason it was here. Like a part of a puzzle that I just lacked context for, you understand what I'm saying?"

"Perfectly."

"I had other things to worry about most of the way, but when we got to Baynham and the ExoGeni computers, this is one of the first things I thought of. What this ship is doing-,"

"- is covering the route to the Thorian itself."

Shepard looked at Garrus. The turian's eyes were glittering, as if he'd finally gotten that last piece of evidence he needed to blow a criminal case wide open. Or as if he'd finally cornered a helpless prey animal. Or both.

"It all fits, Commander. ExoGeni's files tell us the main nexus of the Thorian has moved itself up into the lower floors of this skyscraper. Saren needed to communicate with the thing, and he needed to access Zhu's Hope to do it. The geth were attacking Zhu's Hope to get at the Thorian instead of trying elsewhere in the building. This freighter is here, instead of the docking bay where it should logically be. It's covering something, and that has to be the direct and most convenient route to the Thorian nexus."

"Saved me the trouble of saying it, Garrus. So the second thing that we need to do is keep watch on this. We're going to want to put whatever Marines we have up here on any shift watching this, have the Navy crew watch the colonists. I'll leave it up to you whether to move this thing out of the way or not, but I'd probably suggest moving it. Exposing the quickest route into this courtyard might tempt the Thorian to send creepers up it, rather than from somewhere else in the building we can't predict."

"I understand, Commander." Garrus turned from him, and began surveying the freighter more closely, possibly looking for the entrance hatch.

Shepard heard the whine of engines above his head, rising into a scream as the _Normandy_ flew low over Zhu's Hope, banking down and out of sight towards the landing bay some six stories below. _That's my cue, and not a moment too soon_. The adrenaline had entirely worn off by this point, and his left hand felt as if it had been dunked in molten metal. _At least the pain is keeping me awake, I suppose_. Even if Dr. Chakwas couldn't reattach his finger, he desperately needed treatment.

He turned and retraced his steps back toward the stairs leading to the docking bay. Kaidan and Private Grenado were already there waiting for him. "Be ready with your weapons, just in case there's some creepers in the stairwell."

There weren't, which was just as well: the stock of his shotgun was by this point slick with oozing blood, and between the pain from his hand and the fatigue, he felt that he would've been hard pressed to shoot straight if any hostile had appeared.

As they reached the entrance to the docking bay, Shepard, Kaidan, and Grenado met a gaggle of crew coming the other way; twenty or so Navy personnel in fatigues, nervously clutching the remaining weapons from the armory, and the three Marines that had stayed behind with the ship, in full battle dress.

"Sir!" Ashley Williams' helmet was tucked under her left arm, her rifle held in her right. The anger and frustration on her face from being cooped up helplessly aboard the ship yet again while the rest of the team fought was quickly replaced with concern as she looked the three members of the shore party up and down. Shepard could only imagine how they looked: covered in blood, scratches and dents from bullets and claws, and the occasional splash of creeper acid. "Are you all right?"

"All in all, Gunnery Sergeant, I'd have to say that's a negative. Good news is there's nothing life threatening."

"Sir?" One of the Navy crew, a pretty young woman with shoulder length curly blond hair and a nametag on her fatigues that read _Tabitha Draven_. _Hang on, that name sounds familiar_. "The XO told us to bring a body bag out of storage with us. Has someone… did somebody…?"

"Private Gladstone was killed in an ambush." That got hisses of fury from the Marines, and fearful muttering from the Navy crew, muttering that wasn't dispelled when Shepard continued. "We weren't able to collect his body at the time. That's one of the things you're going to have to do. All of you, continue up these stairs behind me, and report to Officer Garrus Vakarian. You'll report to him for the next few hours." He didn't miss the look that flickered across Ashley Williams' face when he said those words. "Williams, I need you to come back with us to the ship, and help Dr. Chakwas patch us up. Once you do that, you'll need to go back and see to the colonists, we roughed up quite a few of them in order to subdue them. Okay, everyone, you have your orders, move."

He, Kaidan, and Grenado stood aside to allow Corporals Greico and Chase and the Navy crew to move through into the stairwell. Once they'd crowded through, the three of them began to trudge towards the docking umbilical. Ashley Williams moved beside them, examining them with narrowed eyes.

Covered in grime and detritus as they were, the decontamination in the airlock took several minutes, as opposed to the normal thirty seconds or so; Shepard winced every time the fields swept over him. Even so, it felt like the blink of an eye before they shut off and the inner door hissed open, letting him back into his ship.

The _Normandy_ was a quiet ship under normal circumstances, as if its role as a stealth reconnaissance platform made its crew talk less than normal, but now, with half of that crew ashore, it was eerily silent. The sound of four pairs of armored boots echoed down the corridor connecting the bridge and CIC as they made their way aft to the stairs leading down to the crew deck and the medical bay.

The CIC, like the corridor, was nearly deserted. But one individual remained, hunched over his console next to the captain's. Lieutenant Pressley's uniform was immaculate as always, its brass polished and ribbons neatly aligned, but his face looked haggard. The executive officer had quite obviously been constantly working the entire time Shepard had been ashore. _He looks nearly as exhausted as I feel._

It might've been best, for his own health, to simply tell Pressley to follow them to the sick bay. Every second that passed decreased the likelihood of Doctor Chakwas successfully reattaching the finger he'd been able to recover, after all. But Chakwas would likely want to sedate him for the procedure, and he wouldn't be in a fit state to give orders in that condition. Besides, Pressley would need to come right back here to follow the orders anyway.

Shepard dismissed his three Marines, telling them to go on to the sick bay and that he'd catch up to them in a moment, and approached Pressley. The XO looked up at the sound of his footsteps, straightened, and snapped off a quick salute. "Commander, sir."

"Pressley." More out of reflex than anything else, Shepard returned the salute, using his left hand as his right was still clutching his shotgun.

Pressley's eyes widened at the sight of his missing fingers. "Commander, your-,"

"Believe me, Pressley, I know. I know. That's the whole reason I came back aboard, I need this looked at. Otherwise I'd have just given you the orders I'm about to give you via comms and stayed in the colony to oversee things."

"What do you need me to do, Commander?" Pressley appeared to want to keep the conversation on the bleeding stumps of Shepard's fingers, but if so he left it unsaid.

"What I need you to do is immediately get in communications with Fleet Command and call for reinforcements. The geth here have been neutralized and the colony is at least temporarily back under our control, but we're still in serious danger here."

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Commander. If there's no geth anymore and the colonists have been subdued from whatever madness made them attack us, then what danger could there possibly be?"

Shepard didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that _. Can't really blame him, I didn't communicate any details over the comm_. "Pressley, you remember those creepers we encountered on Chasca?"

"Ah, yes, Commander. Now that you mention it, I believe Gunnery Sergeant Williams mentioned something about seeing some of them attack the ship after we'd taken off here, but surely they don't pose that much of a threat?"

"Pressley, it was one of those things that killed Gladstone. Look, I don't have time to give you the full briefing right now, I need to go to the med bay and Tali has most of the relevant files on her omnitool. I'll fill you in in more detail tomorrow or the next day, there should be plenty of time. Suffice it to say for now that this is the home planet of those creepers. And it turns out that they're not just random monsters, they're apparently the spawn of something called the Thorian, which is a giant sentient plant that covers half the planet and has lived for something like hundreds of thousands of years. Its main nerve nexus is in the lower floor of this skyscraper, and it's basically chemically mind-controlling the colonists. They didn't turn on us out of their own free will."

If Shepard had wanted to, he could've taken a picture of Pressley's face at that moment and turned it into a viral extranet meme.

"Yes, dammit, I know it sounds fucking insane! Everything that's happened since this ship left Sol a few weeks ago has been insane! Look, I promise you that's the truth. The number one reason ExoGeni even established this research base and colony here was to do research on this thing. We found a surviving scientist at the base that confirmed it for us, and we managed to hack their central database while we were there, and that confirmed it too. I've got a few of the files on my omnitool, and I'll transfer them into your console here in just a minute, but the vast majority of them are still exclusively on Tali's."

"Should I call her down here, then, Commander?" The XO still looked faintly incredulous at the notion of a continent-spanning superintelligent ancient plant, but again held his tongue.

"Absolutely not, she's needed up there, just like every other able body on the ship. It's why I had you send up the Navy crew, and anyone who's on duty in vital spaces right now will get to take a turn up there soon enough. We're going to need to be on the lookout for creeper attacks from below, as well as maintain guard over the colonists. They're being mind-controlled, like I said, so they're not responsible for their actions, but they'll still attack us if we give them an opening until we get reinforcements, kill the Thorian and break its control over them. That's really our only hope."

"I… I see."

"No you don't. Not yet, at any rate. Like I said, we'll go over this in more detail sometime soon. For right now, contact Fleet Command. Outline the basics of what I just told you, and request the following. Two more frigates. Reinforced Marine detachments on both, as well as heavy demolition charges and a detachment of military police. A civilian freighter, stocked with food, construction supplies, and medical supplies. A team of doctors and psychologists." _I was genuinely hoping to avoid this_. "Finally, include a requisition for two more standard pattern hardsuits. One male, one female."

"I'm sorry, Commander, I know ground combat is your area of expertise. But… that doesn't make much sense to me. If this… Thorian… is truly as large as you say, what precisely will two more frigates accomplish? Quite frankly, if it truly spans continents, then shouldn't we be calling for at least multiple battlecruisers for an orbital bombardment? Or just abandon the planet altogether?"

"We can't penetrate to ground level through all this debris with our scanners, as you know full well, Pressley. Even if we could, we don't know what this thing looks like, or what its vital spots are. We'd be randomly carpet bombarding the surface of a habitable world with the biggest guns in the fleet hoping to kill it with a lucky shot. Do you think the Council would approve of that? Leaving that aside, we're also mobilizing for a war against the geth right now. Do you think Fleet would divert multiple heavy hitters to shoot up this planet, even on my say so? ExoGeni's files say the nerve center is in this skyscraper. We'll have to hope blowing that up is enough to kill the whole thing. We're going to do that by hand."

"Is this going to be enough Marine reinforcements, though? At most, fifteen soldiers per ship?"

"Too many troops will just be unwieldy in those corridors. Thirty fresh Marines plus what we still have here should be more than enough. It'll have to be." Shepard was reaching the end of his tether. Pressley was well within his rights to ask questions, both to clarify exactly what was going on with this absurd new foe and to make sure the best options for dealing with it were being taken. Normally Shepard would've been perfectly happy to engage with him.

But normally Shepard would've been perfectly capable of sending the message to the Alliance himself. Right now, the stumps of his fingers were screaming up his arm in agony. The stims and caffeine he'd taken before disembarking to begin the mission more than fourteen hours previously, and the adrenaline that he'd been riding for much of the interim, had all now fully worn off and been replaced with a massive wave of fatigue to go with the exhaustion he'd already been battling. It was, at the moment, all he could do to stand up straight.

And he could swear he could hear faint whispering, the words of which he couldn't make out. _Fucking Beacon_.

"I should go, Pressley. You have your orders. Send the message. Make sure to include the request for everything I said. I need to see the doctor."

As Pressley obediently turned to his console, tapping in the message for the comms specialists to encrypt, Shepard turned for the aft stairs.

With nobody watching, he didn't bother trying to hide the sway in his step.


	16. M Shepard VI

_**0930 Hours AST, May 1, 2183**_

 _ **Western Courtyard, Zhu's Hope Settlement**_

 _ **Feros, Theseus System, Attican Beta Cluster**_

Shepard sat on a crate, in full battle dress, staring at his left hand on his knee. He bent his pinkie finger, then straightened it again.

The full complement of the _Normandy_ 's living Marines stood nearby, including Abishek Pakti in his new hardsuit, as well as the nonhumans (save Tali). They paced, conversed casually with the newcomers, or simply sat and waited like Shepard was doing. All of them, no matter what they were doing, occasionally cast nervous glances towards the now exposed door in the wall that would shortly take them down into the bowels of the skyscraper. Except Wrex, of course; his glances weren't nervous in the slightest.

Shepard ignored them and focused on his finger. He bent it, then straightened it again.

Dr. Chakwas had, miraculously, been able to reattach it when he finally had reported to the med bay three days ago. To hear her tell it, twenty more minutes and the nerve endings would've degenerated past the point where that would've been possible. "In just these past few weeks, you've pressed your luck more than anyone else I've ever known," she'd said. She wasn't wrong. And now I'm getting ready to press it some more.

Pressley had composed and sent off Shepard's preliminary report, with the basics on what they were up against and the requests for support and supplies, within thirty minutes of receiving the orders to do so. The _Normandy_ had received an acknowledgement and confirmation that the requested reinforcements were being dispatched from Alliance Command within an hour.

Four hours ago, the reinforcements had arrived in-system: two _Talavera_ -class frigates, SSV _Eleventh Isonzo_ and SSV _Golden Spurs_ , escorting the STUFT (Ship Taken Up From Trade) freighter MSV _Duchess_. One hour ago, they had arrived in the upper atmosphere of Feros. Since the docking bay of the skyscraper only had one functioning docking umbilical, Shepard had ordered the _Normandy_ to take off so that the other two frigates could take turns landing and disembarking their Marines; the _Duchess_ , loaded with the various things that would not be of help in combat, would remain in orbit and only dock once the Thorian had been purged and the colony made completely safe, once and for all.

"Sir?" He felt a shadow loom over him and glanced up briefly.

Lieutenant Miller, commander of the _Golden Spurs_ ' Marines, stood there, awe, anxiety and nerves of a kind Shepard recognized all too well written on his face. A butterbar, a junior lieutenant fresh out of university ROTC, Private Jenkins with a commission, starstruck by the presence of humanity's great hero. "Pardon me for asking, sir, but perhaps you could give me and my men something of a briefing on exactly what we'll be facing? What these plant monsters are, how do we kill them, that sort of thing?"

"We've decided to call them creepers, Lieutenant. And I've already told you that I'll conduct a general briefing on tactics when the _Eleventh Isonzo_ 's detachment gets here. I shared everything I know so far about the Thorian with your captain over comms as you worked your way in system, and he should have shared it with you. As for how to kill creepers, I advise shooting them repeatedly. If you want more detail, I suggest listening to Private Grenado, as I can see six of your Marines doing right now."

Miller mumbled an apology and retreated. Shepard returned his attention to his finger. Bend, then straighten.

The _Golden Spurs_ had been the first of the two new frigates to dock and drop off its Marines, some forty-five minutes ago. It had taken back off around fifteen minutes ago to make way for the _Eleventh Isonzo_. Both of the newcomers, in addition to their reinforced Marine detachments, were carrying military supplies that were going to be sorely needed.

 _Eleventh Isonzo_ was carrying six M825 shaped charges, typically used by Alliance combat engineers to crack bunkers and other fortifications. Although Shepard had yet to actually lay eyes on the Thorian himself, simple logic had told him that the central nerve nexus of an organism large enough to span the entire continent was going to be enormous. In a different environment, he might have gone with Pressley's initial suggestion and simply blown it up from orbit. With the thing stuffing itself into the lower floors of the skyscraper, he'd sent instead for the biggest man-portable demolition charges the Alliance had to offer.

 _Golden Spurs_ ' extra cargo hadn't been so immediately vital for the securing of Feros, but would be essential for the coming larger search for Saren, regardless of whether or not Shepard was there to see it. Three crates of grenades, two crates of small arms, more ammo blocks, and two full hardsuits. One male, to replace the one Private Abishek Pakti had had ruined by creeper acid on Chasca. And one female.

Shepard bent his finger, then straightened it.

Before Dr. Chakwas had put him under for the surgery to reattach his finger three days ago, there'd been five people in the med bay: himself, Chakwas, Private Grenado and Lieutenant Alenko with their minor wounds, and Gunnery Sergeant Williams, who'd been tending them. When he woke up from the anesthesia, the latter three had disappeared. Dr. Chakwas had looked him over, given him a set of exercises to make sure his newly-reattached pinkie finger was responding correctly, then left to take over treating the subdued colonists from Williams. Shepard, meanwhile, had left the med bay, crossed the crew deck, and collapsed into his own bed for a nightmare-plagued sleep. He was so exhausted and battered that he'd managed to sleep for five hours despite the visions of the beacon.

When he'd woken from that, he'd returned to the med bay, to have a conversation with Dr. Liara T'Soni.

Dr. T'Soni— _no, Liara. She keeps insisting I call her by her given name_ —was an odd individual. Despite Shepard removing the guards watching her before the Chasca mission, in the days since he'd never seen the asari outside of her cramped storage compartment. He'd been told by others that she would occasionally leave for food once or twice a day; hurrying into the galley with her head down, shoveling a mound of food onto a plate, then scampering back into hiding, all the while avoiding every gaze. Not that Shepard could blame her. Other than himself, Kaidan, and Dr. Chakwas, attitudes towards Liara aboard the Normandy still ranged from coolly neutral to outright hostile.

When he ventured into her compartment to speak with her directly, her demeanor varied wildly: practically bouncing with excitement when discussing the Prothean civilization or what the visions the beacon had jammed into his head might have been intended to convey, only to fall into a state of mumbling awkwardness when asked anything about herself that didn't pertain to her research. She maintained that she had had no contact with Benezia, but informed Shepard that she'd begun reaching out to distant relations and people she knew had worked with her mother in the past for any clue for where Benezia might currently be and what she might be doing.

One thing remained consistent: Liara T'Soni wanted to help. In any way she could. She'd been the one to propose taking up arms and fighting alongside the rest of them: "at least until your superiors send you real replacements." Chasca had made Shepard give serious consideration to it. The death of Gladstone, here on Feros, had made him accept it.

"Will you need me to aid you in dealing with this…Thorian?" she'd asked, when he'd told her of his decision.

"No. We should have more than enough in the way of temporary reinforcements to deal with this. I need to figure out how to prepare the crew for this. We'll look to ease you in on something more routine. I just dropped by to let you know."

"I understand. And Commander," she'd added, when he turned to exit the compartment, "thank you for trusting me."

Shepard snapped back to the present, as fifteen more armored Marines tromped into the courtyard. Most of them were occupied in carrying the demolition charges, which were big enough that each required two men. Their leader, a burly Hispanic man, stepped up to Shepard and briskly saluted.

"Lieutenant Adrien Martinez, commander of the Marine detachment of SSV _Eleventh Isonzo_ , sir. Awaiting orders."

"Your men can put down the explosives. Give their arms a bit of a rest, they'll be needing it." Shepard picked up his shotgun (the only weapon he'd be bringing with him), stood on top of his crate, and raised his voice. "All of you, gather round and listen up." He waited a moment, as three frigates worth of Marines, a turian, and a krogan, packed in around him, then continued. "If you're on my crew, what we're about to do needs no introduction. We've been over this multiple times in the last three days. Somewhere down in the guts of this building is a giant thinking plant that's decided to use its brain to be a jackass. Its mind controlled the colonists here via chemical torture, killed one of us, injured several more, and according to ExoGeni's files is on speaking terms with Saren Arterius. We are now going to repay it by walking downstairs, shooting all its creepers, strapping a bomb to its face, and blowing it the hell up."

That got a loud cheer from every single one of his crew, including Garrus and Wrex. The detachments from the other two ships looked mildly confused and unnerved. Shepard addressed them next. "I gave the basics to Alliance Command when I asked for you guys to come, I gave some more detail to your captains when you arrived in system, and you just heard me address my guys just now. If you don't have the general idea of what needs to be done there's no helping you at this point. The main threat to us down there is going to come from what my crew and I have decided to call 'creepers'. Best we can tell, they're the Thorian's equivalent to fruits, except these fruits are basically shaped like a human, have acid for blood, puke acid at a range of about three to four feet, and have talons that can lop your limbs off in one good swing. They go down fairly quickly under weapons fire, so they're no threat if you see them coming, but they have a nasty habit of quickly popping out of nowhere. Stay sharp, be constantly checking your corners. And be wary, because the Thorian is likely going to send them at us in swarms to defend itself. We might be talking hundreds at a time here, who knows. No matter what, we protect the explosives at all cost. They're the key to bringing this thing down. Are there any questions that I have not already addressed?"

For a moment, the group of forty plus soldiers in front of him was silent. Then the _Golden Spurs_ ' butterbar, Lieutenant Miller, tentatively raised his hand. "Sir, do we have any idea exactly where we're going in this building? Do we just start going downstairs and hope we find a giant plant?"

"Two days ago the _Normandy_ did a careful flyby of the lower floors of this skyscraper. The atmosphere is extremely choked with dust down there, which both hampers scanners and the ability to fly, but we were able to penetrate the building enough to reveal a large open central shaft that takes up almost two-thirds of the skyscraper's diameter, and starts about sixty floors below us. It's going to be quite a walk, but I'm positive that's where we'll find the central nexus of the Thorian. Anything else?"

"Are we certain that this staircase is the correct way to the objective, sir?"

"Given that before you arrived the colonists had this sealed off with a small freighter, and that over the past three days we've had to deal with four creeper incursions from this route, yes, I'm certain. Anything else?"

"… no sir."

"Good." Shepard hefted his Katana, then hopped off the crate. "Wrex and I will take point. I want the explosives carried in the middle of the column; Miller, your Marines will take them for the first fifteen flights of stairs down, then my crew will switch in. Everyone, keep your eyes peeled at all times. Let's move."

As he moved towards the entrance to the long stairwell, Shepard cast a glance back over his shoulder, over the jostling crowd of armored warriors forming up behind him. Through the cluster of prefabs that made up Zhu's Hope, he could just barely see the opposite side of the courtyard, where the colonists were being kept under guard (as well as Lizbeth Baynham, who'd been retrieved from the skyway by the Navy crewmen and restrained immediately after the colony was retaken). He didn't feel particularly happy about the situation he'd been forced to keep them in, tied up and penned in an outdoor corner for three days, but their behavior had confirmed its necessity. When the colonists had woken up, they'd spent most of their time screaming nonsensically at their guards, struggling against their restraints, frothing at the mouth, and attempting to literally bite the hands that fed them. Gunnery Sergeant Williams and Doctor Chakwas had had a hell of a time treating the injured ones. _The Thorian did this to them. Just one more thing that it needs to answer for. Time to finish this_.

He turned and passed through the doorway.

The first forty stories or so were eerily uneventful. No sign of creepers, no sign of vegetation. Just the same decaying duracrete that everywhere else on Feros had been made of, with the same dusty air. At around twenty floors down, the stairwell widened, enough for three soldiers to move abreast, allowing Shepard to condense the long line of Marines stretching back up towards the surface (though it didn't particularly help him personally; Wrex was wide enough to count for two men by himself). Every dozen floors or so, the force would pause and swap out the Marines carrying the demolitions for fresh arms.

In spite of himself, the total lack of opposition, or any sign that they were really two-thirds of the way to their objective was beginning to make Shepard doubt they were on the right track… then a horribly familiar smell, faint but distinctive, oozed its way through the bottom of his helmet and wormed its way up his nostrils.

Mold, stagnant water, rust, with just a dash of sulfuric acid _. At least there's no human blood like there was on Chasca. Or maybe it's just too faint for me to pick it out_.

Shepard halted on the stairwell, Wrex stopping beside him. The krogan turned his massive head and fixed Shepard with an amused red eye. "You only smelling it now, Shepard? I got a full face of it ten stories back. We'll be in the thick of it soon enough."

"Yes, yes, congratulations, Wrex." Shepard turned back and addressed Corporal Chase, Private Pakti, and a Marine off the _Golden Spurs_ , next in line behind him. "Seal your helmets. Canned air only from here on out. Feel free to use helmet comms, there's no danger of eavesdropping. Pass it along."

From that point on, it became more and more obvious that they were, indeed, on the right track. Tendrils of vegetation appeared on the stairs and walls, coalescing into slick grey tangled mats, forcing their progress to drastically slow to avoid slipping. The light began to dim, as the webs of plant matter sealed off the occasional rents in the side of the building that had been providing light much of the way down until now, and great clouds of spores began to appear, floating in the air. All the while, Shepard kept count of the levels in his head. _That was fifty one… fifty two… fifty three…_

Even now, as they got closer and closer, there was no sign of creepers, and by now Shepard understood why. The stairwell was a long, unbroken series of stairs and landings, stretching all the way back up to Zhu's Hope. There'd been no side passages for creepers to suddenly burst out of, and any attempt to simply rush the column from the front would be both choked by the stairs themselves, and exposed to the fire of nearly the entire group as they fired over Shepard and Wrex's heads. The Thorian would instead unleash its minions on them in its own lair, he knew.

 _….sixty_. Even if he hadn't been keeping count, he would've known they'd reached their destination, for the stairs ended here, in a hall that continued straight ahead for perhaps twenty feet, then took an abrupt turn to the right. It was almost pitch black here, at the bottom of the stairs.

But ahead at the end of the hallway, from around the bend, he could see a dim gray glow through the spores.

Shepard readied his shotgun and quickened his pace, going as fast as he could without breaking into a run. In but a few seconds, he'd covered the length of the corridor, Wrex keeping pace besides him and the next three Marines hard behind him, and turned the corner. Then he stopped dead.

Everything he'd learned from ExoGeni's files, questioning of Baynham, scans of the lower floors of the skyscraper, and his own basic logic had told him to expect something like this. _But it's one thing to know something in theory, and another to see it for yourself_.

He was standing in the entranceway to what could best be described as a gigantic enclosed atrium. A massive open space dominated it, extending both upwards and downwards out of Shepard's sight. This open space was encircled by terraces on every floor of the skyscraper. The area he'd just emerged into had several thick duracrete columns holding up the ceiling, and a small lip extending out into the great open space, all of which were carpeted by vegetation; the wall immediately to the right of the doorway boasted something new, in the form of a large, fleshy sac bigger than himself and that looked like a cross between a blister and a tumor. He couldn't see enough of the other levels to the left and right to confirm if they were constructed the same.

Shepard couldn't see anything at all of the opposite side of the skyscraper across the void, due to the colossal bulk of the Thorian nexus in the way.

A Marine slammed into him from behind as he stood transfixed in the doorway, nearly knocking him over; Chase, by the sound of her apologies. He shook her off and strode forward onto the lip, as his Marines emerged from the stairwell behind him.

The Thorian nexus was incredibly huge. Just the part in his immediate view was the equal in size to the largest thresher maws he'd ever seen (he forced back the memories of just where he'd seen those), easily thirty feet thick. Leaning out over the abyss he saw that its trunk disappeared down into the darkness below, getting thicker as it went. The Thorian itself, unlike its sickly gray creepers, was a golden-brown color, with splashes of red. For the most part, it appeared to be an amorphous blob of fleshy tissue, hanging suspended in midair, save for one protrusion that almost resembled a head with a face. There were no actual eyes or nose or ears on this "head" that Shepard could see, but it did appear to have a mouth, albeit one completely shrouded by long fleshy tendrils as long as Shepard was tall. _Odd. And disgusting_.

That did not interest Shepard nearly so much as what was keeping this gigantic lump of xeno plant-flesh suspended in the air. Just as he'd suspected, there were several massive fleshy anchoring cables sprouting from the central nexus and connecting to the wall of the skyscraper on several levels. He counted five from where he was standing, extending above their level, below it, to the left, to the right. That didn't take into account the probability of more, currently invisible anchors, extending behind the thing. _This may be… problematic_.

Behind him, he could hear the shocked exclamations as more and more of the soldiers under his command filed into the chamber and got their first look at the Thorian.

"It's huge!"

"Holy shit! Are we sure these charges are going to be enough?"

"That's a fucking PLANT?!"

Shepard turned and surveyed his force. By now nearly all of them had wedged their way in. "Alenko, Vakarian, detachment leaders, front and center." He moved back off the lip as the specified individuals pushed their way to the front of the crowd, the lanky form of the turian easily distinguishable amongst the humans.

"Okay, you four, we're in a bit of a pickle here."

"A what, Commander?"

"Human expression, Garrus, don't worry about it. Where are the explosives, still out in the corridor? I can't see them."

"Yes, Commander. There's not enough room here until we sort everyone out into a more disciplined formation."

"Fair enough. Now, like I said, we have a problem here. We don't have enough explosives for all of those anchoring cables."

"What makes you say that, Commander?" Kaidan asked, as Miller and Martinez leaned to the side to get a better view themselves. "I'm seeing five cables. We brought six charges, that should be enough for everything plus a spare."

"Kaidan, if there aren't at least two more anchoring cables stretching out behind this thing I'll eat my helmet. Plus after taking a look at this, I'm not sure just blowing it loose is going to kill it. We're going to need to find a way to attach at least one charge onto the nexus itself. I'm honestly shocked we aren't already drowning in creepers, so let's hurry up here. I'm thinking we're going to want to divide up into five teams of nine to tackle these tendrils-,"

HHHHHRRRK

A deep rumbling noise, something like a cross between a bullfrog's croak and a spit gargle only much much louder, echoed through the vast space. As exclamations of shock rippled through the crowd of Marines, Shepard turned back around to face the Thorian with a sense of creeping dread.

The vast bulk of the Thorian nexus was twisting and heaving in space, and somehow moving itself closer to the level that the Marines were standing on, straining at its anchoring cables.

HHHHRRRK

The great mass of the thing convulsed as it moved within a few feet of the terrace, the headlike protrusion that Shepard had noticed earlier now directly over the lip where he had been standing just a few moments before. Lieutenant Miller raised his rifle next to him; Shepard shoved the barrel back down. "What the hell do you think that's going to do?"

The Thorian began rapidly expanding and contracting, emitting a wheezing noise like a gigantic pair of bellows. The fleshy tendrils around its "mouth" raised, revealing an orifice that looked like nothing so much as a giant sphincter. _It almost sounds like it's going to… oh please no…_

BLARRGGGHHH

In a rush of slime, the Thorian's sphincter-mouth opened and vomited forth something onto the lip, a bare few feet away from him. _What is it with this thing and its spawn and puking everywhere?_ But where the creepers just vomited acid, the thing unfolding itself in front of him was a good deal more complex. And a good deal more impossible.

It was… an asari.

 _Can we just stop with the breaking of basic laws of reality already? No?_

The asari turned to face them, apparently utterly unconcerned that she had just been vomited out of a gigantic plant, or that she was stark naked and dripping in slime. She was also green. Asari were not supposed to be green.

"Invaders."

Her voice was deeper than Liara's, a contralto carrying a note of imperiousness and utterly without fear. Where Dr. T'Soni had exuded an aura of sweet innocence, and Councilor Tevos serene elegance, this asari was a feral predator, surveying the force with emerald eyes. Every inch of her trim, athletic, nude body was covered in Thorian muck that gave it a slick sheen. It was both disgusting and erotic at the same time.

"Your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, fit only to dig or decompose."

 _That sounds like the Thorian itself talking. I suppose that should've been obvious enough. Is she carrying a message or is it directly speaking through her? Messenger or comm device?_

"I speak for the Old Growth, as I did once for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!"

Saren.

Shepard had never entirely forgotten his overarching mission, but the sheer abnormal lunacy that had been enveloping them all since Chasca had driven the rogue Spectre to the back of his mind. Now, the traitor came rushing back to the fore. _Saren came here. Saren is responsible for half of this. He did all this so he could talk to the thing that's responsible for the other half_.

"You'll have to forgive me, I already got my awe and terror out of the way when I first came down here." He looked past the nude asari, addressing the colossal mass behind her directly. "Saren came here to talk to you. He must've wanted something. What?"

He wasn't expecting an answer. To his surprise, he got one.

"Saren sought knowledge of those that are gone. The Old Growth listened to flesh for the first time in the long cycle. Trades were made."

 _Trades? What kind of… and more importantly, why did it just tell me? This is vital information, by itself_. "Those that are gone" could only be the Protheans. It only took a second for Shepard to realize why.

 _Because the Thorian doesn't expect me, or any of us, to leave here_.

The emerald asari continued, her voice rising in pitch. "Then cold ones came, and began killing the flesh that would tend the next cycle! Flesh fairly given!"

"That 'flesh' wasn't his to give, you bitch!" Corporal Chase snarled from somewhere behind Shepard's left shoulder.

"No more will the Thorian listen to those that scurry! Your lives are short, but have gone on for too long!"

Shepard's shotgun was halfway to his shoulder before she finished her sentence, but he still wasn't quite fast enough as the naked asari sprang into motion, faster than any human could and suddenly blazing with a blue nimbus of biotic power. She lunged at the _Golden Spurs_ Marine that had been right behind Shepard coming down the stairs, collapsing his windpipe with a single palm thrust, then whirled on Lieutenant Miller and broke his elbow with a snap kick.

 _Commando_. Shepard had never personally witnessed one of the legendary asari elite in battle before, but he'd heard the tales of their abilities well enough. As the familiar guttural moans and groans of creepers echoed around the cavernous space, coming from the left, from the right, from above and below, he backpedaled and turned, trying to bring his weapon into line… _no, wait_.

The asari extended her hand towards Corporal Chase, who was also attempting to draw a bead with her rifle. The corporal yelled, then suddenly floated up into the air and slammed with vicious force into the nearest concrete pillar with a flick of the asari's wrist. Shepard heard something crack, and prayed it was just Chase's armor plate.

"Everyone! Double ranked semicircle, around the entrance! Charges in the middle! First rank kneel, second rank fire over their heads!" He shouted the command over the intercom: with the rising cacophony of Marine voices and steadily louder creepers sounds, he wouldn't have been heard otherwise.

He pulled his left hand off the stock of his Katana, a corona of blue energy gathering around it. As the asari turned towards Private Pakti, he thrust out his own arm and flung a biotic _warp_ at her. The sizzling biotic fire slammed into the biotic barrier gently glowing around her, severely weakening it and knocking the asari off balance. Fatally. A blizzard of rounds from Shepard's own weapon and at least six others tore the green alien into chunks.

Shepard ran forward and helped Corporal Chase stagger to her feet. "Up! NOW!" He pushed her, unsteadily, towards the nearly complete formation around the entrance they'd used.

They made it just in time.

Shepard had thought he'd seen a lot of creepers during the fight to retake Zhu's Hope; he'd believed them terrifying on their first encounter on Chasca. Neither held a candle to this.

A solid wave of creepers flooded towards the force from the right, from the left, crawling up the supports from the next level down; a wall of groaning, grey-green grotesque plant people. He didn't even bother trying to count them. He just pulled the trigger on his shotgun, again and again, as the weapons of forty one humans, a turian, and a krogan did the same, their rounds lancing out to meet the oncoming tide.

The fight seemed to last for hours, though as was usual in combat, it was more likely a few minutes. Despite their numbers, not one creeper managed to make it intact to the force. Several, though, made it close enough that their acidic blood, as their bodies were shredded by a hurricane of bullets and shotgun pellets, sprayed the closest Marines.

Even worse, twice more during the fray, the Thorian vomited forth another green naked asari, identical in all respects to the first one. The first inkling Shepard had that it had done this was when he was bowled over by a biotic _throw_ , straight into Kaidan, disrupting the formation and nearly paying dearly for it at the talons of the nearest creeper before Wrex blew the thing in half. The asari herself was promptly riddled with bullets as ten Marines immediately focused on her.

 _A clone. Somehow this plant, in addition to all its other crazy abilities, can clone sentient beings. How? And where did it get the genetic template?_

Eventually, the creeper tide slowed to a stream, then to a trickle, then ceased. He knew it wouldn't be forever—he could hear more groans echoing from deeper in the skyscraper—but this would be the breathing space they needed. "Sound off! Casualty check!"

Three Marines dead, six injured to varying degrees. All from the _Golden Spurs_ or _Eleventh Isonzo_. Not good, but sustainable for the time being.

"Okay! Listen, here's the plan! Most of you are going to hold this position. I am going to take a team of nine, that is, you, you, you, you…" he indicated nine soldiers at random, including Gunnery Sergeant Williams and Garrus, "with one demo charge, and we are going to go blow up the nearest cable on the left! Lieutenant Alenko will also take nine, and do the same to the nearest one on the right! While we're doing that, the rest of you will defend the remaining demolition charges, until we come back for the next ones."

"Commander, I have a-,"

"Normally, I'd welcome questions, Alenko, but not now. We need to move."

"Commander, those charges are heavy and there are giant pools of acid blood blocking our routes to the target, we can't jump those carrying the things."

Shepard raised his hand and gestured. One of the charges floated into the air, over the heads of the Marines, over the creeper remains and smoking blood, and plunked down on the far side of the green pool. "Pick your nine and move, Alenko."

It wasn't all that far to the first massive organic cable, at least if they'd been going in a straight line, and weren't under attack by creepers the whole way. Sadly, they were walking on matted vegetation in a very dim environment over rubble and up two flights of stairs, with a growing stream of creepers coming at them from the front. Shepard and Williams, on point, spent almost the entire time shooting.

Consequently, what should've been a five minute walk turned out to be more like fifteen.

Up close, the tendril was easily almost as thick around as an oak tree; enough to make Shepard question whether a single charge would be enough to sever it. Or it would've been, had he not already known what the M825 was capable of.

"Lieutenant Alenko, are you in position on your side?"

"Almost, Commander," came the reply. Over the intercom, Shepard could hear a grunt, scuffling noises that presumably indicated Kaidan shifting position, and a rattle of submachine gun fire. "Last creeper between us and the objective is down, Commander, moving to attach the charge."

"What's the fuse been set to on these?"

"Six seconds, sir."

"Fair enough. Attach yours, start the timer, and start moving back towards the others immediately." He received Kaidan's acknowledgement, then cut the connection.

Shepard looked over his shoulder at the two Marines carrying the demo charge, ignoring the noise of Williams' Avenger as she cut down another couple of creepers. "Attach it there. Angle it away from the wall." He indicated a spot on the massive trunk about five feet away from the end, and stepped aside.

The Marines moved forward, grunting with the effort as they lifted the massive ordnance above their heads and placed it against the giant tendril. One of them hit the button to deploy its grappling clamps—the M825 was designed to breach bunkers and fortifications, and came with a set of mini drills/claws to punch through the walls of such things and hold the charge fast.

The other punched in a tri digit code and started the fuse.

As soon as he heard the beep of the armed device, Shepard abandoned his lookout for more creepers and pelted back the way he'd came as fast as his legs would carry him. "Alright, back to the entranceway! MOVE!"

The explosion, when it came a few seconds later, was earsplittingly loud, almost loud enough to drown out the Thorian's screech of pain, which seemed to echo both throughout the vast chamber and inside his head. A wet tearing sound came on its heels as the last few strands of plantflesh that the charge hadn't cut snapped on their own and the massive cable recoiled back toward the Thorian nexus.

But the next sound that came was the reason Shepard had ordered everyone to run. They'd never been in danger from the charge; it was specifically designed to channel its force into one spot only. But the cacophony of groans that rose behind them was another matter entirely. The Thorian, for the first time in its nearly hundred thousand year existence, had been injured, and it was unleashing another wave of creepers as big as the first on the scurrying creatures that had dared harm it.

They barely made it back to the entranceway and the rest of the force in time; Kaidan's group, a scant few seconds later, had the three Marines in its rear dragged down and torn to shreds by the flood of grey-green plant-men behind them.

The ensuing fight lasted nearly as long as the first one had, and was even more intense. The group remaining at the doorway had been unable to open fire until the bomb groups rejoined the formation, allowing the leading edge of creepers to get close. One poor Marine caught a jet of acid vomit square in the faceplate and visor of his helmet, with predictable and horrific results.

Yet this wave was beaten off as well, in the end. As the flow of creepers began to slow to a trickle once more, Shepard commed Kaidan.

"Pick out another nine, and head out again the instant this wave stops. Go left this time, I'll take the right."

It was a longer walk this time, almost twenty minutes escorting the charge, treading over vegetation and the mangled remains of the unfortunates from Kaidan's squad from earlier. _God, that's not even going to warrant a proper body bag for all three of them_.

But the basic sequence remained the same. Find the anchoring point of the cable, attach the charge, trigger the fuse, and run like hell. Retreat back to the entranceway, and beat off the newest wave of creepers sent after them by the agonized Thorian. This time, there were no casualties. The Marines from the _Golden Spurs_ and _Eleventh Isonzo_ had been shocked by the nature of their foe and the quick casualties they'd taken, but they were adjusting.

"We're going to do it differently this time," Shepard said over the comm, this time making sure the whole force could hear it, when the last creeper of the third wave dropped. "Wrex?"

The krogan, who'd been mostly quiet ever since they'd entered the Thorian's lair, swiveled a red eye in Shepard's direction. "Shepard?"

"We've got two charges left. We're only going to use one on a supporting cable. You see that one?" Shepard pointed his finger in the direction of the last cable that was visible from their position by the entranceway. Wrex turned his massive head, following.

"Yes."

"You're going to be in charge of blowing it up. Take a charge, work your way to it, and contact me once you get there. Let me repeat, once you get there, contact me before you do anything else. Got it?"

The krogan snorted. "Call you for permission to do the job you're sending me to do in the first place. Got it."

"Not permission. Coordination. Take a team with you, no more than nine."

Urdnot Wrex snorted again. He moved from his position in the formation, lumbered over to where the remaining two demolition charges were sitting in the center, bent over, and picked one up with one hand. Tucking the massive piece of ordnance that required two Marines to carry under his left arm like a loaf of bread, the krogan then moved over to where Ashley Williams was standing, close to Shepard.

"Williams. Shepard says I have to have a team. Follow along, and keep anything from jumping on my back."

Williams' eyes widened for a moment behind her visor, then narrowed. "Why do you want me?"

"Because I can't take Shepard and you're the best shot after him. Let's go." Not bothering to say anything more, Wrex turned and marched towards the right archway that would take him, eventually, to the final tendril they needed to destroy. He effortlessly hurdled the smoking pool of acid where three successive waves of creepers had been destroyed with the charge still under his left arm and his Claymore shotgun in his right hand.

Ashley Williams didn't follow him immediately, instead looking towards Shepard as if pleading not to go.

Shepard simply shook his head and indicated the way Wrex had gone _. I let him pick, he picked her. His choice carries my authority, whether or not her prejudices are comfortable with it_. Williams reluctantly hefted her rifle and set off.

As she disappeared through the right archway, his earpiece buzzed with Kaidan's voice.

"What do we do now, Commander?"

"We wait for Wrex and Williams to reach the last tendril and contact us."

"And then what?"

"We tell them to go ahead and blow up the tendril."

Shepard could almost hear Kaidan's unflappable calm crack over the comm; not quite, but almost. "Commander…"

Shepard sighed. He'd been keeping the exhaustion, and all that came with it more or less at bay over the past three days, being so busy. The adrenaline of the fight down here had helped even more. But now, with the final end on Feros almost in sight, it was beginning to press back in. Something flickered in the corner of his eye; he ignored it.

"I mentioned earlier, before the thing puked out its first green asari clone, that we both didn't have enough charges to blow every tendril off the wall and that simply knocking the nerve nexus back down to the planet's surface is not going to be enough to kill the thing. Remember? I didn't get any further before the first clone showed up."

"Kaidan, we're going to need to directly place a charge on the nexus itself. Unless you want to try jumping out there to it, there's only one way I can see. When Wrex calls in, you and I will carry the last charge out to the lip, arm it, then one of us will biotically lift it and the other will biotically throw it, and attach it right to that disgusting tentacle sphincter thing it's been popping asari out of. That should do the trick."

There was a long pause over the comm, Kaidan's disbelief almost palpable. "Commander, that's-,"

"The only way. We're obviously not going to be able to trigger the clamps biotically, so I'll hold it in place for the last few seconds of the fuse. All I need from you is to help me carry it out to the lip and throw it."

"Commander-,"

"Enough, Lieutenant. All we need to do right now is wait for Wrex to check in."

Despite the fact that it was a longer distance to the last tendril than it had been for the previous ones, and despite the fact that Wrex only had one person with him rather than eight (or maybe because of it), it was a scant twelve minutes for the rumbling voice of the krogan came through into Shepard's headset.

"We're here, Shepard. Can we get this over with?"

"Almost, Wrex." He signaled Kaidan, and together the two of them picked up the last charge and moved towards the lip. He hadn't bothered telling the rest of the force what his plan was—they had no part in it, after all—and the Marines looked at them curiously as they moved forward.

"Put it down for a second." The M825 clunked down on the decaying duracrete, and Shepard tucked his shotgun onto the hardpoint at the small of his back. A rattle of rifle fire sounded behind them, one last creeper trying and failing to intervene.

"Okay, Kaidan. You arm it, I lift it, you throw it, I'll hold it in place. In that order. Ready?"

"Ready, Commander."

Shepard tensed his muscles and called up the familiar surge of power. "Do it." Kaidan's hand flashed down towards the arming pad. "Wrex! Arm your charge!"

The red light flicked on next to the pad. Shepard yanked the charge into the air with a pulse of energy, then saw it shoot out over the chasm, rotating as it went, until it stopped just outside of the Thorian's "mouth". The charge's narrower end, the one the blast would be channeled through, was pointing straight at the sphincter-thing.

 _Three… two..._

In his mind's grasp, the clunky piece of metal suddenly transformed into a lance of fire with a roar. Even though only a tiny fraction of the force pushed against Shepard's _lift_ , it was all he could do to hold steady. The strain of containing and channeling the explosion demanded a massive amount of biotic power from him, more than he could remember ever using before, setting his nerves to burning. But he managed it.

The blast from the levitating bomb punched straight through the "mouth" of the Thorian, through whatever inner workings the colossal abomination had, and carried sufficient leftover force for a small flicker of flame to burst out the other side.

A second later, another blast echoed from where yet another tendril was recoiling, severed, from the chamber wall. It proved too much for the Thorian. With yet another deafening bellow, the remaining tendrils ripped free from the back wall, taking chunks of duracrete with them and revealing the gray sky of Feros beyond. Trailing smoke, the nerve nexus of the mighty Thorian plunged down into the abyss, hitting with a massive unseen impact fifteen seconds later that set the entire skyscraper to shaking, worse than ExoGeni's HQ had shaken days before.

And just like that, it was over. Feros was saved. _Except for all those geth heavies that are still wandering in circles out on the skyway, I suppose. Someone will have to figure out a way to deal with them_.

Right now, Shepard very much didn't want to be that someone. As he turned from the lip and walked back towards the Marines at the entranceway, fighting to stay steady on his feet due to the shaking skyscraper, a wave of exhaustion once more surged through his mind.

"What's the butcher's bill, Kaidan?"

"Ten dead, sixteen more wounded to various degrees, sir. All KIA either from the _Spurs_ or _Isonzo_. Corporal Chase has two cracked ribs, Private Dubyansky has a concussion and minor acid burns on the left arm. There's a few more injuries among our crew as well, but that's the notable-,"

Maybe it was the shaking of the building. Maybe it was the demise of the Thorian. Likely it was a combination of both. Quite suddenly, the large sac just next to the entranceway suddenly ripped open, and a figure half-fell, half-rolled out of it with a wet splat.

A murmur of shock rolled through the collected force, and several of the closest Marines wheeled upon the figure, raising their weapons. Abandoning his conversation, Shepard pushed through the crowd with Kaidan at his side, one hand reaching back for his shotgun.

It was, unmistakably, an asari, clad in the tattered remains of a leather commando jumpsuit. _Of course. Of course. I wondered where the Thorian was getting genetic material for those clones_. _How_ the Thorian had gotten that genetic material out of her was obvious as well; long, root-like tendrils extended from the remains of the sac, penetrating the asari's body via every available orifice. _Every_ orifice. _As if I hadn't seen enough disgusting stuff today_. She appeared half-conscious at best, in a pool of milky goo, and was quite obviously choking on the things.

"Garrus! Kaidan! Help me get this stuff off her!"

It only took the three of them a scant few moments to rip the tendrils free, Garrus's talons proving invaluable. With the roots removed from her body, the asari rolled over on her back, gagging, then tried to stagger to her feet.

"Easy, now…"

She stood. Shepard, Kaidan, and Garrus did likewise, and retreated a few steps. "I… I'm free! I'm free, I can't believe it!"

Her voice was identical to the husky contralto of her clones. Her features were the same as well, filled with a feral beauty. But where her clones' skin and scales had all been an emerald green, the original was a dark purple, with violet eyes. The voice of her clones had dripped with cold contempt; the original's radiated joy and gratitude. _I like this one a lot better_.

"Yes, you're free. Are you physically unharmed? Do you need immediate medical attention?" Garrus' flanging voice bit through the air from Shepard's right.

"I… no, I believe I am well."

"Then if you don't mind, we're going to need you to answer some questions. Who are you? And what are you doing here?" Garrus' mandibles were twitching.

Shepard opened his mouth inside his helmet to rebuke the turian for treating a victim this way, someone who'd clearly just been through a massive ordeal… then shut it again. Saren had come to Feros with asari bodyguards, ExoGeni's records had mentioned this. The alien woman was quite clearly wearing the remnants of military gear…

 _Just when I'd thought we'd run out of leads on Saren. Eleven lost lives on this planet. Please let this all be worth it_.

For the first time, the asari seemed to really notice the large force of armed warriors surrounding her. Her eyes widened, and she took a deep breath, or tried to; it turned into a hacking cough instead, and she spat up a gob of mucus.

"Very well. My name is Shiala Arienal. I serve… I served Lady Matriarch Benezia T'Soni, for the past seventy years as one of the lieutenants in charge of her commando bodyguard. I came here to this planet by her orders as the head of a commando detachment serving as a bodyguard for her… associate Saren Arterius."

"Why was Saren here?" Garrus pressed.

"To communicate with the…" Another realization seemingly struck her, and Shiala turned her head and stared at the space the Thorian nexus had occupied until a few minutes before. "You… you killed it. You killed the Thorian."

"Yes, we did. And we already know Saren came here to talk to it. What did he want to talk to it about?"

"I… do not believe that knowledge would be of use to you."

Garrus let out a hiss at that and flared his mandibles.

"I am not deliberately concealing information from you. I have no desire to aid Saren anymore, in any capacity; I do not believe I ever truly did, now. As for Benezia, it grieves me to say it, but she has become lost and is no longer the woman I swore to serve. I simply do not believe you can make use of the knowledge Saren gained from the Thorian."

"Hold on a moment." Shepard raised his hand to cut off whatever Garrus was about to say. "Why do you not desire to aid Saren anymore? Why are you saying that you never did? You were literally his bodyguard here, were you not?"

"It is…difficult to explain."

"Everything is. Try anyway."

Shiala looked as if she was struggling to form the right words. "Saren has… a ship. I do not know where he found it, its exterior and interior design is like nothing in any organic or geth fleet I know of. You may have seen it, in footage of his attack on your planet of Eden Prime, human. He calls it _Sovereign_."

"That's what he calls the giant flying cuttlefish? Yes, I believe I know the ship you're talking about."

"I am afraid I do not know what a cuttlefish is. Nevertheless, that ship is at the center of Saren's power. Its main armament is stronger than that of any warship in the Citadel fleets, its thrusters swifter, its shields tougher. But its greatest ability is something far more sinister. _Sovereign_ emits an… energy field. I do not know how else to describe it. It cannot be seen. It cannot be heard or smelled or touched or measured with any instrument I know of. But its effects are undeniable. Spend enough time near Sovereign, inside its hull or outside it, and you will feel a growing compulsion to obey Saren's every word. It starts simply, his words seem more charismatic. But as time goes on, it does not matter whether you find his words charismatic or convincing. He will speak, and your mind may disagree, but your limbs move to obey. Spend enough time in Sovereign's presence and you will lose yourself. There is no other way I know to describe it."

This brought up so many questions in Shepard's mind that he didn't know which to ask first. He settled for turning to Kaidan and asking, "Are you recording this?"

Thankfully, he received an answer of "Yes, Commander."

"You lost yourself and became a brainwashed puppet that couldn't control its own actions. Interesting. So why are you able to start helping us now?" Garrus asked. His voice was positively dripping with sarcasm.

"I do not know. Perhaps I am still under _Sovereign_ 's influence in some way," Shiala answered, her brow furrowed, ignoring the overtones of Garrus' voice. "But I do not believe so. When Saren finally came here, to the Thorian's lair, I served as the medium by which it transmitted the information Saren desired to his mind. After that, the Thorian demanded and received me as tribute in exchange for giving up that information. I had no choice. The will of Saren was too strong. I stood against the wall and let it envelop me in that cocoon, though my mind screamed to flee. That was the strength of the compulsion. I no longer feel it. My only guess is that the Thorian overwrote it while it absorbed me. And now it is dead, and its own compulsion is gone."

"So the giant spaceship brainwashed you, making you not responsible for your own actions." Garrus' voice was somehow even more sarcastic than before. Shiala attempted to say something but the turian steamrolled over her. "And then the giant ancient plant canceled that out with its own brainwashing, which means you're now not brainwashed at all and can go free. Also, the important information that Saren went to all this trouble for somehow isn't useful to us. I see." Garrus turned to Shepard. "Shepard, she needs to be taken into custody and interrogated at great length. By your Alliance, or maybe give her over to her own people. Maybe even the Hierarchy. I don't believe a word she's told us."

"Shepard? Commander Shepard?" Shiala's eyes had widened, and were boring into his own.

"…yes? You've heard of me?"

"It would have been hard not to, with how often Saren raged about you after Eden Prime. Despite what your companion believes, I do not shirk my own responsibility at all. Whatever Sovereign may have done to me, I made my choice to follow Lady Benezia into her folly, and it is only right that I pay a price for that. If you believe that said price is to rot in the jails of your kind or my own, then I will submit without a struggle. But before you do anything more, I beg you to listen to what I am about to tell you."

"Okay, then. Go ahead," Shepard said, impressed in spite of himself at the asari's attitude.

"I said before that the information Saren received from the Thorian would be of no use to any of you. I was mistaken. Commander Shepard, you, other than Saren, are the only person in the galaxy the Cipher would be of use to."

 _Why_ , Shepard was about to ask. Then his mouth dried. Information relevant only to himself and Saren…

"You begin to understand already, Commander Shepard. I can see it in your eyes. The information Saren received from the Thorian, the Cipher, was the ability to catalogue, order, and understand the visions he received from the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime. Visions that you received as well. It is of no use to myself, as I was never touched by the beacon, but I served as the medium for the Thorian to grant the Cipher to Saren, and I can grant it to you as well. Please. Allow me to do this, as the first step of my penance for the crimes I committed in Saren's service."

Shepard could barely breathe. The solution to the nightmares and visions that had been tearing his brain apart for weeks? The key to understanding Saren's goals? A full night's sleep? All of that at once, just like that?

Wildly, he cast a gaze back over his shoulder. The force was staring at him completely nonplussed. His own Marines, with the exception of Chase, hadn't been on Eden Prime, and none of them had any idea what the beacon had done to him. The contingents from the _Spurs_ and _Isonzo_ were even more out of the loop. Kaidan and Garrus were the only ones present who understood exactly what he was being offered.

"What… how… how is this possible?"

"The Protheans made this world into one of their greatest, but the Thorian was here before them, and it endured after them. When the Protheans died, the Thorian absorbed their bodies, as it undoubtedly would've done to me in time. It absorbed their memories, their flesh, their thoughts, everything about them that made them unique. That is the Cipher. I cannot put it more plainly than that it is how to think like a Prothean. The visions the beacon granted you and Saren were not meant for the mind of a human or a turian."

"And how would you go about granting it to me?" Garrus made a noise of protest at this, but Shepard cut him off with a wave of his hand.

"The Cipher cannot be taught. I cannot explain it to you. It must be experienced. This is a large part of the reason Saren requested an asari bodyguard to this planet in the first place. It is an inherent ability of my species to join our minds to that of another, and that is what I will do, if you permit me. I will transfer the Cipher directly into your mind."

Garrus could not contain himself at this. "Shepard! This is insane! This is an admitted high ranking lieutenant of our enemy, you can't just let her start poking around in your brain!" Even Kaidan was making disbelieving noises.

Shepard held up his hand. Normally he would've agreed with Garrus without a second thought, but the potential here… "Are you absolutely sure this is the only way to get this 'Cipher'? And another thing. I think I've heard of this mind joining. Isn't this called melding? Isn't that how you asari have sex? Are you literally propositioning me?"

Shiala's face flushed an even darker purple. "I… no. I am not propositioning you, Commander. Though I see how the misunderstanding could arise. This is a variation of the same process that we asari use for reproduction, yes. But only a variation. In order for… sexual pleasure… to be derived, or for a child to be produced, the minds of the individuals in question would need to be fully joined, to the extent that neither could be distinguished from the other. I will but lightly brush your mind with mine, just enough to transfer information. Nothing more. And yes, this is the only way."

Shepard could not remember the last time he'd faced this difficult of a choice. On the one hand, the potential for information that could break open the hunt for Saren and preserve his own sanity. On the other, the potential for a spy to shred what was left of his brain and leave him nothing. He closed his eyes, trying to think…

 _Spinning, bioluminescent jaws, dripping with neon acid as the thresher maw reared high into the sky._

 _Amelia Fry's terrified scream as it plunged downward onto her._

 _Stanley Toombs' white face, before he vanished under a pile of rubble_.

Shepard's eyes popped open. "Do it. Do it now." He might as well not even have heard the furious exclamations of Garrus or Kaidan.

"Thank you, Commander. I swear, I shall not harm your mind. Please remove one of your gloves, the connection works best against bare skin." He almost tore his body suit in his haste to rip his right gauntlet off. As soon as it went clattering to the floor, a slim purple hand took his.

"Try to relax your mind as much as you can, Commander Shepard. Embrace Eternity."

 **A/N: So, yeah. This happened.**

 **I didn't want to procrastinate like this again, but I inevitably did, which has resulted in another multi-month delay between chapters. I greatly apologize. Next up will be Hannah Shepard II, which will be much much much shorter and should hopefully be out around Christmas.**

 **I will say in my defense that this entire Feros arc has turned out to be much more massive than I originally planned. I'd originally planned for the entire planet to be done in 2 chapters, one of Garrus and one of Shepard. Instead it turned into four, with the second split coming after I finished writing Shepard V and realized that it clocked in at 82 pages in Word and 22k words.**

 **Regardless, I hope you guys enjoy these latest two chapters, and I'll see you again relatively soon! Hopefully? Maybe?**


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